ACT Prep Class

Elective class dropped, extra prep class still stands

STORY BY DYLAN COLEMAN

Eudora High School offers a wide variety of elective classes for its students, covering topics from learning how to cook to animal science. Classes come and go on the regular at EHS. The ACT Prep class, taught by Eric Magette and Scott Keltner, was a class that sadly went away.

I went on a journey to find out why this class had died. Why did this class leave? Were there just not enough students wanting it, or did it not fit into teachers’ schedules? 

Magette, EHS Biology, Anatomy and Physiology teacher, previously taught this course alongside math teacher Keltner.

Magette explains as class sizes got bigger, the workload for his content-area classes was increased. Magette took on ‘Applied Chemistry’ this year, previously taught by Mrs. Morning Pruitt. With that in consideration, and class sizes getting bigger, Magette needed to teach more of his core classes.

Magette believes another reason that this course was destined to reach an untimely end was because the online software used to teach it won’t be around for much longer in USD 491. 

“The ACT Prep Class used the Ingenuity software,” Magette said, “which is the same software they use in the virtual school [in Eudora], and there’s been some discussion that maybe that’s going to go away on the district level.” 

Even though the course is not offered anymore, Magette feels like this course was beneficial for some students.

“I think that the students that really did the class, that worked through the problems, and really wanted to get better,” Magette said. “The students that worked through the assignments, I think they benefited.” 

On the other end of the spectrum, Magette realized that people sometimes used that course as a “study hall”, and potentially could be a factor playing into the course being dropped from the curriculum.

“I think there were a significant amount of students that just kind of took that class as a study hall, and that might be part of why it went away.” Magette said.

EHS Alumnus Weston Trefz, class of 2018, to the ACT prep course with Mr. Keltner, and thought it was definitely beneficial. According to Trefz, it “gave him a chance to better understand the organization and type of questions on the test.”

Trefz agrees that the course sometimes acted like a “study-hall”, but emphasized that the teacher continued to keep the class on the right track.

“The study hall aspect was true occasionally,” Trefz said. Trefz explains how the course to regular school work helped him for hours of the test. “Kelt did keep the class lively,” Trefz said.

Even though his ACT score didn’t seem to increase initially, Trefz took the test a second time. After taking it the second time it did. 

Other than this elective course, for the past twenty years, an ACT Test Prep Class has been offered by Carolyn Devane, a previous ACT Class teacher to Mill Valley High School and Manhattan High School.  She offers strategies and a new approach to the questions, for $45. The class is held in the EHS library, only a select few Wednesdays each year. 

Students seem to enjoy this class, and feel that it raised their ultimate ACT score. 

Alumna Madison Sanchez, class of 2019, learned tips and tricks for the big test.

“[the class] gave us some tips I don’t think I would’ve known if I had not taken it,” Sanchez said. 

Senior Emily Howard, on the other hand, thought it helped – but only to a certain degree.

“I liked certain aspects of the course,” Howard said. “However, there was a lot of her talking about a certain tool then us trying it on a short 5-10 minute test.” Howard believes strongly that “not just anyone would benefit from it”.

“If your parents are making you do it and you’re not motivated to increase your score, then there’s no point to do it,” Howard said. 

Howard raised her score, but doesn’t believe it was because of this day-long course.

“I did raise my score 4 points but I think that’s more due to my personal studying,” Howard said.

The elective course has sadly gone away, but the ACT Test Prep Class taught by Carolyn Devane still stands. In the end, it’s up to the student to make the decision to put an ACT prep class to the test, and see if it raises their score.