Students of Moanalua High School are halfway through the school year, but this means that it is the time for freshman through junior students to think about the electives and classes they will be taking for next fall. 

Registration cards were distributed during an extended homeroom on January 9 and are due January 18.

Students will not only be registering for core classes, but elective classes as well. Moanalua offers a wide variety of electives ranging from world languages, engineering, culinary, and much more.

This coming school year (2024-2025), the school will offer three new electives: art history, AP chinese, and hip hop dance.  

Art History

Math teacher Robert Rivero has always had a passion for art. When he travels, Rivero tours museums and visits art galleries and especially enjoys when he sees paintings in person after reading about them in books such as The Story of Art History by Ernst Gombirch. He created the art history elective course because of what he does with his math classes.

“It’s kind of something I’ve been doing with my math class,” Rivero stated. “I’m so invested in art, in my free time I started making [art] slides for my math students.” 

Rivero said he does this as a way to encourage student engagement in lessons as student engagement in all classes has decreased.

“We can’t do math for 70 straight minutes, … so I was like “Great, how can I find a way to give [my students] a break, that’s not really math, but still structure?” Rivero said.

Rivero hopes to teach students who join his class about the history of some of the most historical pieces of art that people see in art galleries and museums and explain how “art is a reflection of history at the time.” 

“Art doesn’t [have to] exist in [just] a vacuum or a bubble. It’s a reflection of [what was] happening at the time,” Rivero said.

He wants his students to be able to “look at a piece of art and have an intelligent conversation” with his lessons and fun projects that he has in store for his students.

Though the course code is listed as a Language Arts humanities course, it is an elective and cannot be used toward the four required English credits for graduation.

Rivero is in M305.

Hip Hop Dance

Hip hop dancing has been popular since the early 1970’s. You see it everywhere with a variety of songs. All it took for teachers Kimberly Reincke and Jill Tengan to create this class was the National Dance Conference in Denver, Colorado back in the fall of 2023.

“I attended a hip hop session and the instructor there was saying it was, I guess, one of the biggest ways to grow your program, is to add hip hop,” Reincke said. 

“I’ve seen students around campus as I walk through, you know, dancing during recess and lunch, and I see them doing hip hop and I was like ‘hey, wonder if our students would be interested in that?”

Although hip hop dancing is taught in creative dance, the new hip hop class focuses solely on the art hip hop dancing instead of multiple types of dancing. 

Hip hop dancing culture is turning 50 this year, and Reincke is hoping that she can help students learn what components contribute to the success of hip hop dancing and help students start their journey, with or without any prior dance experience. 

Within this class students will learn the history of what hip hop is, what makes it what it is, and eventually learn some hip hop dance with music. Students will also have the opportunity to create their own choreography and share it with peers. 

Stickers for Hip Hop dance will be available in classroom U102D and provided by both Reincke and Tengan.

AP Chinese

World languages are popular in Moanalua, with a wide variety. From Hawaiian all the way to French, students have a large selection to choose from.

Next fall will be the beginning of the new language course AP Chinese taught by Mei Yee Cheng. 

“Some students were asking why there isn’t AP (Mandarin) Chinese.” Cheng said. “Since the interest was there, I decided to look into the possibility of having an AP Chinese course here at our school.”

Currently, Moanalua offers Mandarin Chinese levels 1-4 and Advanced Chinese. AP Chinese will replace the advanced course.

“I hope to motivate students to become invested in learning the language, persevere in learning, and give themselves credit for taking on a new language,” she said.

Cheng said one student who graduated wants to be a Chinese language teacher. 

“I hope to expand the program so that he can return to his alma mater and teach here,” Cheng said.

Because much of international business is conducted in Mandarin, and more Chinese people speak it than Cantonese.

“I’ve also had students ask me why we don’t have a course in Cantonese,” Cheng said. “The answer to that question lies with the DOE. But I believe that if interest in the Chinese language continues to grow, adding a Cantonese course in the future is not impossible.”

Cheng is in H301.

Students who need assistance with getting the necessary barcode stickers for elective and or core classes can attend tutorial on January 16 in the cafeteria. 

Registration cards are due Jan. 18 to the student’s CAP teacher. Any late cards will still be accepted, but placed at the bottom of the pile and registered after cards turned in on time have been processed. Students that turn in late cards may not get their first picked classes if the class has already been filled.