There is excitement in the air for the completion of the new Owatonna High School. Current OHS students will be attending the new high school in the fall of 2023. Education at OHS is always evolving to better prepare students for the next steps in their lives, whether it be going to college, attending a trade school or immediately entering the workforce. In continuing this growth, OHS has added six new classes to begin next school year.

The new Owatonna High School will have a school store, conveniently named the Husky Hut. In this store, students and people in the community will be able to purchase Husky wear and other essentials for school. The school store will also be a class taught by Mr. Scharber. This class will teach students how to manage a small business, hone their marketing skills and work on their planning and leadership abilities. The primary focus of the class will be the daily operations of the store; however, students will show what they have learned through individual projects and participation. The Marketing Class is a prerequisite for the School Store class.

Pre-Calculus is already taught at OHS by Ms. Mara Oien and Ms. Kristen Andrix concurrently through Southwest Minnesota State University. Math teacher Mr. Steve Benson proposed making the pre-calculus class an AP class. Mr. Benson said, “We wanted to make this accessible to everyone basically. The big motivation was to make sure everyone who wanted college credit got the opportunity to get college credit.”

 This would allow students to take the AP Pre-Calculus test while introducing the AP weighted scale to some younger students for the first time. A few more topics would be added to the course to satisfy the College Board regulations pertaining to AP class status. This is the first year the College Board is offering the AP Pre-Calculus test and curriculum. The course will still be taught concurrently. 

To add emphasis to the agriculture pathway at OHS, Introduction to Plants, or Principles of Agricultural Science- Plants, will be added as a class next fall open to students ninth through twelfth grade.  The class will take place in a classroom, a laboratory, the greenhouse, and a school farm on Rose Street. The school farm has two parts. The first is a thirty acre plot of land farmed locally for students to learn about soil, land management, and crop production. The second part is in development for students to learn about plants and animals on a modernized small scale farm.  will allow for a lab like setting for experimentation and hands-on learning for soil testing and other important agricultural factors.

Students will learn about plant anatomy and physiology, classification and the fundamentals of harvesting and planting. Ms. Tinaglia proposed this class and will be teaching it. She said, “I am personally excited about working with more students that are passionate about plants and animals.  I love the outdoors and working with my hands to help things grow.  I want to share that enthusiasm with my students.”

A Web and Computer Animation class will be offered next year, taught by Scott Seykora, who is an art teacher. This class will focus on opportunities and careers within the animation field and learning to create animations from the ground up, including creating storyboards, script, design and the finished product. Students will learn to create impactful media and animations for the web and how to involve themselves in the growing field of animation. 

The addition of these courses has been overseen by the School Board and Assistant Superintendent, Michelle Krell. The focus of the addition of classes is to explore more career pathways for students to help them become ready to take the next step after leaving Owatonna High School. Teachers and administrators are always working to find more learning opportunities and real life, relevant experiences for their students. With the addition of these classes, students will feel more prepared to receive a higher education, go to trade school or immediately enter the workforce.