Whitman held its third annual Electives Fair Dec. 11. Teachers and students presented elective course offerings to incoming freshmen, sophomores, juniors and parents for the upcoming semester and school year.

Whitman offers a wide variety of electives, including world language classes, the engineering-focused Project Lead the Way program and the expanding Leadership Academy for Social Justice (LASJ) curriculum. Students can also choose from social studies, science and English electives, such as AP Psychology and Molecular Biology.

Senior Keira Lee represented the Creative Writing elective, taught by English teacher Emily Glass. The course introduces students to various genres of prose and poetry and will feature significant changes next year. Lee said the class will now include a second semester focused on creating Whitman’s literary and arts magazine, the Eidolon.

“Semester two is going to be dedicated toward creating the Eidolon, so it’s not just going to be writing,” Lee said. “It’s going to include design, editing, publicity, and website management.”

A new LASJ course, Social Justice Through Public Policy, will be offered next semester and taught by economics teacher Kevin Oberdorfer, who has a background in public policy. Oberdorfer developed the curriculum and submitted a pilot program application, which the Montgomery County Board of Education recently approved. In the semester-long class, students will learn about the policy-making process, analyze policy issues, propose and debate policy solutions and design campaigns to effectively implement their solutions.

“The class is designed to empower students to engage in the public policy process and achieve the change they want to see in the world,” Oberdorfer said.

In addition to the public policy course, LASJ now offers Hispanic or Latino/e American Studies. The Social Studies department is also piloting a Holocaust Studies course, which was offered to students last year but did not receive sufficient enrollment.

Freshman Aryana Ali-Pradhan, recently accepted into the LASJ program from the Wootton cluster, is passionate about social justice and interested in pursuing law. She is excited to take the public policy course, along with many other LASJ classes.

“I’m really glad that Whitman has so many options open for the students,” Ali-Pradhan said. “I wish that the students who go to the school from Pyle knew more about the programs.”