As the 2026-2027 school year approaches and course selection for next year begins, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has increased the number of classes set to be offered. This is a part of FCPS’s initiative to provide students with more career-based skills and better prepare them for real-world experiences.
Classes from ecology to cybersecurity bring both excitement and apprehension, as little is known about these new classes.
“In social studies, we’re going to try bringing back Combatting Intolerance and AP African-American studies,” counselor Alice Whitener said. “They’re not new, but we haven’t offered them for the past two years.”
FCPS announced several courses will be made available to students next school year, including AP Business, AP Cybersecurity and DE Geospatial analysis. Not only will AP Business and AP Cybersecurity be available to sophomores, but AP Business will count towards students’ Econ & Personal Finance credit. As for AP Cybersecurity, students will need to have completed either Cybersecurity Fundamentals or some other Computer Science course, such as CS Principles.
“They’re more in the realm of practical knowledge,” Whitener said. “The AP exam is more like a credentialing exam type of thing.”
While AP Macro/Micro and AP Psychology were offered in the past, sophomores will now have the option to take them. Some see this new addition as a good opportunity for underclassmen to get AP experience, but may worry about the detriment to an underclassman’s mental health and workload.
“This is probably my biggest worry as a counselor,” Whitener said. “I think the intent is good in the sense that you can get more college credit and take classes that you want to take, but if you’re 14 or 15-years-old and with all these courses, the pressure is real. There’s almost too many options.”
Others are concerned with the readiness levels of younger students taking AP courses.
“I’m a little hesitant because the juniors and seniors cognitively have had a bit more time to grow and their brain to mature to be able to do the skills required in AP Psych,” psychology teacher Kelly Field said. “There are not many sophomores I have met that would be up to that capability yet. I think waiting a year or two would offer a lot more success in the course. When kids tend to have more success, they tend to have more enjoyment of the course.”
As FCPS continues to add AP and Dual Enrollment into their available course list, students get more and more competitive. They may see their peers taking a certain AP course and think that they need to do the same to have a chance at college. This could add a large amount of stress to students, especially ninth and tenth graders who previously did not have as many college level courses.
“A lot of students start thinking, ‘What is everyone around me doing?’,” Whitener said. “Students need to remember that the majority of colleges admit the majority of their students, period. I think there are only 60 out of the 2000 or so colleges in the whole country that admit less than a quarter of their applicants.”
On the other hand, these additions can be very beneficial since class schedules can now be more personalized towards a student’s liking or pique new interests. Much like college, students now have more liberty in taking courses that interest them.
“This is the time to test drive stuff,” Whitener said. “You don’t have to have it all figured out. If you want to try AP Business, you can, but then if you don’t like that, you can pivot. Maybe you try Psych, or theater.”
