Granite Bay High School’s course catalog further diversifies for the 2025-2026 school year, with weighted college level classes of AP, IB and now DE courses.
Dual Enrollment courses will now be weighted the same as an AP/IB class, but students won’t have a final exam similar to an AP/IB exam. All DE courses will have the added weight excluding non-academic, elective classes such as DE Multimedia and DE Empowering Entrepreneurship. This decision by RJUHSD has added to the list of college-level classes that GBHS students can take.
“It’s getting calendared as a weighted class anyway. And schools like Roseville Pathways, they don’t offer AP classes, but they do offer Dual Enrollment classes, so it levels the playing field amongst the other schools in the district,” Jeff Dietrich, a GBHS Assistant Principal, said.
The new DE classes include the following: English 1A, College Algebra, Statistics, Spanish, Multimedia, Economics, Psychology, Empowering Entrepreneurship and Computer Science Principles. All of the courses that grant UC A-G requirements, which are the high school classes required to apply to a University of California school, will be weighted, except elective DE courses.
DE classes are also available to all grade levels, including the freshman class. Previously, freshmen haven’t been able to enroll in DE, so this poses a new option for the incoming freshmen class.
“They (freshmen) haven’t been accustomed to taking high school level classes and college level just in general, advanced, and so I feel like teachers are going to have to accommodate that, and it’s going to be harder for them to teach to such a wide variety of students” Lucille McDaniel, a sophomore, said.
With or without the weighted grade, the targeted group for Dual Enrollment are students who wouldn’t go to college directly after senior year. The original purpose of these courses was for its students to get the opportunity to indulge in that level of education while still in high school.
“If you’re someone that might want to go to a four year college, that pathway may not be as rigorous,” Dietrich said. “It’s an option for kids depending on what they want to do after high school.”
Some DE teachers worry this weight will affect the primary factor in selecting their courses.
“I do not like the idea of any weighted classes in general because it changes how students choose classes,” Weidkamp said. “I am really sad to see students feeling pressured to take courses just because they are weighted and not enjoying other courses or programs during high school.”
Lisa Kunst, DE Statistics teacher, shares that the topics and curriculum between DE and AP is the same.
“The AP Stats and the DE stats just for comparison, is exactly the same curriculum. We teach exactly the same topics,” Kunst said. “I have to make sure that you’re almost kind of teaching to question types in a way, rather than just content.”
When Kunst was taking statistics in college, Kunst was taught by a grad student who wasn’t devoted to the class or its students, where she estimates the pass rate to be about 50%. Because of her experiences in college, her perspective changes have brought her to teaching DE.
“You’re getting this (…) college level course with a high school teacher who has investments in you, and knows you and has time with you. And so 100% think that (a DE class) is worth it,” Kunst said. “It’s going to be a great course.”
