Dagen Molinaro

The 2023-2024 school year will be the last year the French foreign language class will be offered in the Lucia Mar Unified District, meaning our incoming freshmen will be given only Spanish and American Sign Language as their foreign language class options. 

Students that plan on going to a 4-year college after high school must complete at least 2 years of a foreign language course. Current French 2 students almost lost hope to complete their graduation requirements due to the unexpected teaching plan at the start of the school year.

The school’s previous French teacher, Laura Garcia, taught French 1, 2, and 3 last year. Since her absence, the district has relied on Spanish l teacher, Ross Richards, to take over the school’s French 2 class in order for students to successfully meet graduation and college requirements by the end of the school year.

“I have been teaching Spanish since 2009. I’ve taught French 1 for a couple of years, probably ten years ago,” Richards said. “Because I’ve taught Spanish for so long, the [French] language is very similar in terms of grammar.” 

Although he’s had experience with the French course itself, he believes the transition for his students took some time since they were used to Garcia’s teaching style.

Richards also communicated to Garcia near the end of summer break about where all her French 1 students were at in terms of material they’ve covered.

“She kind of gave me a run down of where everyone was and what verbs they have covered,” Richards said. “There’s always a natural progression from French 1 to French 2 just as there would be with any other language. So I knew it would be a bit more challenging for everyone as it was.”

Even with Richards’s experience teaching French many years ago, he still faced obstacles balancing out his Spanish 1 classes throughout the day until he transitioned to his French 2 class in 6th Period.

“I think a lot of people were expecting to have the same teacher again. It’s just something that people had to adjust to,” Richards said.

Richards mentions that some days you’ll catch him many times saying, “What are we doing in French again?” Especially because he only has one period of it. 

He’ll also say, “Okay we’re going to do these three activities.” and “Wait hold on, we don’t have time to do all of those [activities].”

“With my other classes, that would maybe happen in my first period [Spanish 1 class]. And then in 2nd period, I realized I got this ironed out,” Richards said.

While AGHS still holds on to their only French 2 class, Richards knew from his perspective why the district decided it was time to discontinue the course and say goodbye.

“There’s a lot of Spanish 1 classes. There’s more Spanish 1 students than French, and those numbers are only getting bigger, so it wasn’t possible to have a French 1 class this year,” Richards said. “Knowing that there wasn’t going to be a French 1 class [this year], it seemed clear to me that they’re going to start phasing this out.”

Richards’s quickness to adapt and take on French 2 for the Foreign Language Department is admirable. While this responsibility included challenges along the way, students in the class can now successfully tackle their missing credits to graduate and to hold our community stronger. Très bien Monsieur Richards!