Sunny Hills will diversify its academic offerings for the 2026-2027 school year by introducing seven new courses aligned with student interests and modern career paths.
The additions include Advanced Placement [AP] Business with Personal Finance, Personal Finance and Theater Technology [Tech] 2, alongside four semester-long English senior electives that can be taken in place of English 4: British Literature, Modern Drama, World Literature and Mythology, Fantasy and Imagination.
According to the College Board, a non-profit organization that oversees the AP program and SATs, AP Business with Personal Finance is one of the two new AP courses launching in the fall of 2026, the other being AP Cybersecurity.
Sunny Hills has adopted the business curriculum, which provides an introductory college-level look at entrepreneurship, marketing and accounting.
Principal Craig Weinreich said the shift into finance is driven by a new state mandate requiring a finance course for high school graduation by 2030, which also prompted the addition of Personal Finance, a pilot version.
“The AP Business with Personal Finance is an honors-level class taught by a business teacher,” principal Craig Weinreich said. “The Personal Finance class is a social science course developed… to answer the state’s mandate; for next year, we’re piloting the class.”
Assistant principal Sarah Murrietta noted that these additions are part of an ongoing effort to adapt to student needs.
“We are always working closely with our teachers to determine student interest and needs that will prepare our students for college-level classes and career goals,” Murrietta said.
For students like sophomore Savit Sipahimalani, he said the addition of a finance-focused course is a vital step toward his career goals.
“I was excited when [my counselor] told me there would be a finance class,” Sipahimalani said. “I want to pursue a finance major, so taking this course will help me in college.”
The sophomore said that while he is eager for the class to begin, he hopes to see the department grow even further.
“I wish they would add more finance classes because there’s not a lot,” he added. “[But] I am expecting it to be a great class and something I actually will use in my future.”
While students look forward to the career advantages, Kelsie Castro, the AP and International Baccalaureate economics teacher, said the curriculum provides general practical life skills.
“I think we offer great economics classes here at Sunny Hills, but I am also optimistic about increasing opportunities for students to learn personal finance,” Castro said. “Sometimes in classes like AP Macroeconomics, we learn a lot of theory, and the goal is to understand the economy better with those ideas, but personal finance could help students feel better prepared to navigate their own financial decisions.”
The most significant change occurs in the English department, which is moving back toward four senior semester-long electives that allow students to dive deeper into specific genres. Once staples in the SH curriculum, Murrietta said many teachers are excited for this comeback.
“I’ve been here 8 years, and I’ve heard about these classes for eight years, so it’s exciting to see the teachers excited about bringing back something,” she said. “ Reviving those took great pride in all of us.”
These courses replace the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum track, which Weinreich noted was no longer meeting the school’s needs.
“From what I understand, they stopped updating that class, our teachers don’t like it, our kids don’t really seem to like it, and it doesn’t really have the benefits it was intended to have,” Weinreich said. “Our English department [wanted] to go back to these electives… so [students] get a little bit more variety.”
Department chair Scott Rosenkranz said these elective offerings are unique to Sunny Hills within the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. With preexisting three electives, Bible as Literature, California Literature and Novel, they brought back four more to buttress the system.
The return to electives also allows the school to address student requests for different types of academic work. Murrietta noted that one major benefit is the inclusion of creative writing.
“Over the years, one thing that isn’t included in the common core … is creative writing,” she said. “This gives us a way to incorporate a lot more creative writing that our students ask for.”
One of the four English elective courses, Mythology, Fantasy and Imagination, explores texts from myth, fantasy and some science fiction in a hands-on, project-based manner, while still aligning with California standards, said Rosenkranz. However, he wrote the course when it was first implemented at Sunny Hills decades ago, so the department chair said that though he taught the class one way, another teacher may teach it differently.
Rising senior Lizz Garganera said she plans on taking the Mythology, Fantasy and Imagination course along with the preexisting English elective, Novel, during her second semester.
“I chose Mythology and Fantasy because I thought it was really interesting and I’m really into fantasy, like ‘Harry Potter’ kind of books,” Garganera said.
Garganera believes the expansion of the English curriculum will improve the Lancer experience by providing more engaging choices beyond the typical Honors and AP paths, including AP English Language and Composition and AP English Literature and Composition.
“I think it will improve the experience because I feel like [students will] be more interested in the English language, and they’ll be more likely to enjoy the class more and want to learn,” she said. “I’m expecting it to be really fun, more fun than just reading straight essays.”
The expansion also reaches the stage with Theater Tech 2 and the English elective Modern Drama. Murrietta explained that the addition of Theater Tech 2 was driven by a recent surge in student interest in the technical side of the stage.
“The Theater Tech [1] numbers are really strong,” the assistant principal said. “There has been a really high level of student interest in the last couple of years in the tech side of theater, so we want to give them another opportunity to advance their skills and learn more.”
Theater teacher Christian Penuelas, who oversees the program at Sunny Hills, believes these additions create opportunities for experienced theater students to take the next steps in their interests, while it was limited before.
“It’s exciting, with Theater [Tech] 2, it’s nice to give opportunities to students who are ready for that more advanced level of training and being technical designers in theater,” Penuelas said. “In Theater Tech 1, I have a lot of beginning students, so it’s hard to give those extensive opportunities to returning students.”
The theater teacher said that although he discovered the addition of Theater Tech 2 just recently, he has been tracking the English department’s Modern Drama elective since the start of the school year. Although he may not teach the class himself, he said he is excited about how it could benefit Lancers.
“It’s great that we’re giving more opportunities to explore different dramatic texts in high school because we really only get three or four throughout high school, and there are so many good plays out there that can be explored and studied like novels,” the theater teacher said.
With the addition of Theater Tech 2, the school’s performing arts department will now offer a total of four theater-related tracks, including Theater Tech 1, Theater 1 and a combined Theater 2 and 3 class.
All seven new additions to the SH schedule were added after careful deliberation among staff, Murrietta said. The process of selecting these courses is rigorous; Murrietta said the initial steps start at the beginning of the school year, around September, and are finalized in January.
Beginning at the department level, before moving through the principal, Educational Services and district curriculum committees, the procedure concludes when the school board makes all final approvals, usually in February.
However, the final master schedule depends heavily on student registration. Murrietta said that each class is not always guaranteed a spot.
“Some classes might not actually be taught next year even if they have been approved,” Murrietta explained. “It all depends on student interest and if enough students sign up to take the class.”
Although there is no specific number of students required for a course to go into effect, Weinreich said student interest in each class should fall in the low to high 30s to make the master schedule work.
While the 2026-2027 list of possible new classes is set, Murrietta said the door remains open for the future. Looking beyond next year, the administration is already considering future possibilities, such as AP Music Theory.
“We’re always in conversation about ideas,” the assistant principal said. “As for the new incoming classes, looking at the numbers so far, it seems like they are as excited as we are.”
