School administrators are waiting to hear from the district on whether it will mandate that incoming freshmen take a course in college and career planning in their freshman year, possibly limiting their options for other courses.

At a School Site Council meeting on Feb. 28, principal Andrew Ishibashi said the San Francisco Unified School District is deliberating whether or not it will require next year’s incoming students to take College and Career during their freshman year.

All high schools in the district require students to take the class to graduate. Other high schools require it freshman year, but the district granted Lowell an exemption for the 2010-2011 school year, according to Ishibashi.

Ishibashi said in the meeting that Lowell is seeking another exemption for next year. The district has not yet decided, according to assistant principal of administration Michael Yi.

The district mandates the course for freshmen because of its curriculum, according to College and Career (and Korean) teacher Ah-Mi Cho.

“Last year we started teaching a new curriculum that was targeted at freshmen, but I currently have no ninth graders in any of my classes,” Cho said.

But even though she would be teaching students at the start of their high school careers instead of later years, Cho said she has mixed feelings about the potential mandate. Cho said that while some sections of the course are useful for Lowell students, chapters about time management and how to graduate from high school are not. “The curriculum is written for a district-wide level. We have a fantastic graduation rate, so some parts are too easy,” she said.

Requiring freshmen to take College and Career may limit their other class options. The current course requirement plan would force them to take six classes and choose between taking a Visual Performing Art, foreign language or other elective if they want a seventh class.

To allow students the chance to take a VPA, foreign language or other elective, the school may move a class that is currently mandatory for freshman schedule to sophomore year, according to counselor Tony Lee. “We could move Biology or Modern World to sophomore year, since we have no science or history requirements then,” he said.

Ishibashi also said that the school might have to consider restricting the option to take a seventh class because of next year’s budget deficit.

The SSC has composed two budgets depending on the outcome of a proposed state tax measure, but must plan for the worst. The election that would decide the passing of the measure would be in June if California legislators vote to put it on the ballot. If it doesn’t pass, the budget would be slashed by nine percent, according to math department head and SSC chair Tom Chambers. At the meeting, Ishibashi said that some full-time-employees would be laid-off, and class sizes increased.

The SSC voted at the meeting to allocate all available district and projected Advanced Placement funding to staffing for the upcoming school year under the worst possible budget scenario.

Ishibashi met with department chairs Wednesday to discuss next year’s potential budget cuts. At the earlier SSC meeting he said that the school has not decided to close any current programs, but some individual sections (mods when a class is offered), and supplies for the school may have to wait on funding.