Proposals also include revamp of consumer science
OCEAN CITY — “Everybody from my generation, some a little older, some a little younger, our parents yelled, ‘You’ll never make any money playing video games.’ That couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Curt Nath told the school board Nov. 16. “They make a lot of money playing video games, a lot of money in the design competitions.”
Nath, director of academic services for the Ocean City Public School District, was presenting the Board of Education with a list of programs and personnel changes, both academic and athletic, proposed for consideration in the next budget.
Nath said the high school has an Esports club now and is proposing turning it into a full-fledged sequence of courses with a competitive team.
The proposal would include creating a new Esports room at the high school and tying that room and program into the school’s TV studio.
The program would begin with a sequence of courses that would focus on gaming, the creation of gaming and gaming safety, and would expand into the marketing and broadcasting of competitive Esports.
“We are seeking to develop a comprehensive program that will produce athletes that can compete on a local, state and global platform,” Nath said. “We are working with different universities and technology companies to create a state-of-the-art room and experience for our students and athletes. Much of the work has begun, but there is still much to do.”
Nath said they envision three sequential courses.
“We’re talking about the full integration of something throughout a lot of our departments and a lot of our curriculums,” Nath said. “If you are not excited about that, then please become excited because it’s pretty awesome.”
The anticipated cost could run anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000 to get the program up and running, with annual ongoing costs unknown.
“Please don’t put your eyes on the price tag because we can talk a lot about that,” Nath said.
There also is a wide range of other programs proposed, both new and expansions of existing half-year courses into full-year courses.
“This year we have quite a few that we are going to go through, including some really exciting things,” Nath told the board.
Athletics
Proposed additions to the academic programs, at both the intermediate and high schools, include additional coaches and equipment. Nath said some sports teams are growing in participation and more coaches are needed.
Nath said the volleyball program had an exemplary inaugural year competing only at the junior varsity level.
“As the program continues to grow and expand in subsequent years, we anticipate the numbers to grow with the inclusion of a varsity schedule in 2023,” he said. “We anticipate being able to field varsity, junior varsity and freshman teams next year and would need to add a third coach.”
He said the sport is growing across the Cape-Atlantic League, with teams adding feeder programs at the middle school level. Therefore, they also are proposing an intermediate school program.
Nath said the high school team was able to play at the Ocean City Sports & Civic Center this past season. Now, with more than 30 athletes on the varsity and JV levels, the school is looking to buy equipment such as uniforms and referee stands so the sport could be played at the schools.
Nath said the coaching stipend is about $4,900 at each school. Uniforms, supplies and equipment for the intermediate school would be about $7,500.
The winter track team has a head coach and assistant coach. The proposal is to add a second head coach, giving the boys and girls their own, and keeping the assistant to support both.
Nath said competitions often require travel and may be gender-specific, requiring athletes on the same team to be in separate places to compete.
“Having two squads with their own coach will help our program to continue to build and see even more success,” Nath said, anticipating the cost at $6,800.
The same argument was used regarding interscholastic golf, which Nath said has continued to grow with more athletes participating. The team has a head coach and the proposal would add an assistant. Nath estimated the cost at $5,200.
Additionally, there are more than 60 athletes on the intermediate school track team, which has a head coach for both boys and girls teams. The proposal is to hire a third, assistant coach to support them both, as a cost not to exceed $4,900.
Academics
Nath said the district revamped its business department in 2021-22 and is looking to do the same for the family and consumers science program.
“We have been dwindling down our half-year courses and turning them into full-year courses,” he said, noting half-year courses can cause scheduling conflicts.
Instead of offering four half-year, nonlinear culinary arts courses, the proposal is to offer three full-year sequential courses.
“This sequence will allow the students to cook more technically challenging meals and grow their culinary skills,” Nath said.
He said it also would eliminate the need for redundant instruction in things such as health and safety protocols for handling food, which could be taught the first year and then reinforced in subsequent years.
“These courses do not have any prerequisites and some students are required to sit through the same introductory information when taking any of the four courses,” Nath said.
He estimated the cost of writing the curriculum at less than $1,000.
Proposals also include an interior design course, expansion of Spanish for Heritage Speakers to a second level and creation of a data science course as part of the mathematics department.
Nath said it would be hands-on, project-based course that would merge key concepts and skills from both statistics and computer science.
“Successful completion of this course will set the foundation for many new and exciting occupations such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and neural networks in addition to traditional statistics and computer science,” he told the board.
Another proposal is creation of a film and game music course as part of the visual and performing arts department.
“One of the things we’ve noticed when it comes to visual and performing arts, it’s usually for those inclined,” Nath said. “But we have a group of students that have no artistic ability and no music ability but are still required to take visual and performing arts.”
He said the course would look at movie soundtracks, the importance of music in commercials and video games and “piggyback into things we do with the TV studio and play into getting the Esports program off the ground and running.”
Nath said he anticipates the district being able to cover some of the expenses with available funds but for others things, such as Esports, “we’re looking to capitalize on grants and looking for donations.”
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
