Students, alumni and parents took to the administration building Tuesday morning to protest the district’s planned cuts to the Latin program.
The district has tabled the decision to discontinue Latin instruction for sixth graders starting next year, which would change Latin teacher Joseph Barresi’s working hours to part-time and decrease his pay by 40 percent, until the June 10 board meeting. Barresi is the only Latin teacher at the high school.
“We have 68 students currently at the middle school taking Latin, and the district is trying to say, ‘Well, you don’t have the numbers to continue the program,’ ” Barresi said.
Nikolai Ewing (’23), a former Latin and Greek student who attends The Ohio State University, said that the intensive language study needed to learn Latin helped him learn Russian. “I had to learn the Greek alphabet because I took Greek here as well. The Russian alphabet is a slightly modified version of the Greek alphabet, so I had a leg up on other students because Shaker offered me these opportunities,” Ewing said.
Sophomore Ruth Foreman, recently elected co-consul of Latin Club, said that learning Latin is an opportunity to make connections from Roman history to current events in America. “Latin isn’t just learning a language, it’s learning history and culture. The study of our past is also the study of the present and our future,” Foreman said.
Latin, one of five languages offered at Shaker schools, is available for students in grades six-12. This year, Shaker students in grades seven-12 took part in the National Latin Exam, and 40 Shaker students brought home awards.
Senior Meredith Hurley said attending the Ohio Junior Classical League convention enhances students’ skills outside of Latin. “Losing numbers will very much affect our state convention experience and our national convention experience. [The convention] is a very good experience, you learn so many things — public speaking, how to present yourself,” Hurley said.
Heidi Robertson, a parent of two Shaker graduates, said that Latin being excluded from a language carousel, available to fifth graders deciding which language to take, was done purposefully to set up Latin to have fewer students going forward. “To me, that’s hypocrisy. That word derived from Latin and Greek, and if you didn’t take it, you might not know that,” Robertson said.
The next board meeting will take place June 10 in the high school’s small auditorium. Barresi said that he hopes there will be as many people as possible at the meeting who feel that Latin should remain in Shaker schools. “We’ve encouraged people who want to see the program remain to write letters to the school board. Their [the district’s] reasoning behind cutting Latin is that our numbers are not equal to the other languages, and that’s just not true,” Barresi said.
Robertson said that learning Latin helps students understand other high school courses. “You see science differently, you see literature differently — and that foundation sets up Shaker graduates for success in the future. What I fear is that this board is setting up Shaker schools for a death spiral,” she said.
Barresi said that Latin improves writing, thinking, communication and reading skills, and that the students in his classes read ancient authors who have influenced America’s government and legal system. Said Barresi, “If Latin is taught the right way, it can be more valuable than any other course they will ever take in high school.”
