There are a variety of classes for students to choose from as they begin to select their courses for the 2025-2026 school year; some are brand-new classes being offered for the first time. Next year, BSM will offer new courses in the Spanish, science, and fine arts departments.

Spanish Classes

Starting next year, many of the current honors and Hispanohablantes Spanish classes will transition to PACC (Program for Advanced College Credit) classes where students may earn college credit through St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. Students will enroll at St. Mary’s, like a PSEO class, but the class will be taught at BSM by BSM Spanish teachers Tim Frye, Mary Murray, and Berenice Nava. There is an upfront cost students will have to pay to earn the college credit, but it is much less expensive than taking the same class in college. The classes will be weighted toward the students’ GPAs, and they will receive three university credits from St. Mary’s.

The PACC classes will have a similar workload to the current honors Spanish classes and give students who do not take AP Spanish an opportunity to earn college credit. “We want to provide credit for high-level courses we are already teaching. And so in that way, the PACC classes, while there’s a little bit of adaptation [that has to be done], these classes are already college-level classes,” Spanish teacher Tim Frye said.

There will still be non-college class options for the same Spanish levels, and students can take a PACC class and choose not to pay to earn the credit, but Spanish teachers are encouraging their students to enroll in these classes if they feel they can handle the workload. “[The classes] will help students in all of our tracks to prepare for the next level of their language in college… It looks great on transcripts, and hopefully, it keeps our students in the classroom, where we want them,” Frye said.

Science Classes

For the past two years, freshmen were required to take biology as their first high school science class, but starting next year, freshmen will instead take either Earth Science or Honors Earth Science. Biology and Honors Biology will be sophomore classes, but will not start running until the 2026-2027 school year because current freshmen are in biology.

The science department is also adding a new elective class, Forensics II. Forensics I, currently taught by Bob Lyons, will be the prerequisite for Forensics II. He will also teach the next-level class. “There are some topics that we touched on in [Forensics I] as more of an introductory level, and this will give us an opportunity to go in more depth,” Lyons said.

Lyons hopes his students who enjoy Forensics now will enroll in the second class to continue learning about topics they find interesting. Specifically, Lyons plans to dive deeper into entomology, fingerprinting, blood spatter, anthropology, and toxicology. “I would like to do a unit on accident reconstruction, and then I want to see if I can have a police officer come in,” Lyons said.

Fine Arts Classes

Two new music classes will be offered next year: Cantemus Choir and Jazz Band. Cantemus Choir is meant for developing singers and focuses on the basics of reading music, vocal production, and music theory. It will be a freshmen-only choir, and older students will enroll in Concert Choir. Jazz band, previously offered as a before-school elective, will continue before school, but students who take part will earn half a class credit.

As for visual art, the new classes offered are Video Production and Jewelry Design/Metal Smithing. Art teachers Kate Mich and Ivy Mattson pitched the jewelry design class for students they know might be interested, as it’s different from any other visual art class offered now. “Over the last few years, I’ve taught a sculpture class. And now I wanted an opportunity for students who want to take a studio sculpture class, but don’t want to go into clay. [In this class], students could start working with small metals,” Mich said.

The class will be open to sophomores through seniors as an elective and will include soldering metal with a torch, as well as basic metalworking to create jewelry. “We both [Mattson and Mich] have a basis of knowledge of metalworking; we’re going to work together this summer to create this class. I’m sure there are students out there who want to go in the jewelry direction and create beautiful rings, earrings, necklaces, and things like that,” Mich said.