At the end of last school year, the Mehlville Board of Education announced that it would be making big changes in the social studies department.

Now, instead of freshmen taking American Government and juniors taking U.S. History, freshmen will take U.S. History and juniors will take American Government. However, since implementation of this system just started this year, there is a curriculum overlap with the incoming freshmen taking U.S. History alongside the juniors.

According to social studies teacher Mr. Nicholas Aboussie, this change was made because juniors, who have a “more mature mind”, are able to score higher on the American Government EOC exam.

“We studied a variety of other districts, and many that are scoring high on the EOC were districts that were testing juniors,” Aboussie said.

While the change in curriculum has definite benefits to EOC scores, it also has its downsides.

“One downside is the logistics for the first couple of years with creating the student schedules,” said Aboussie.

All current problems with the system will be eliminated in two years when there is no curriculum overlap, and teachers are hopeful that the new class order will increase student understanding of material and EOC exam scores.