Why Is Precalculus Disappearing from Sequoyah’s High School Curriculum?

Alexi Burgess teaches one of the last Precalculus classes offered at Sequoyah

In conjunction with the updated Curriculum Guide released to the student body the week of March 17th, Mathematics Department Chair Alexi Burgess made a surprising announcement at March 20th’s Morning Meeting: Sequoyah will no longer be offering the class known as “Precalculus.” This news came after Burgess sensationally announced to his fall semester Precalculus class that the subject does not in fact exist. Is this a personal vendetta? A philosophical quibble with the very idea of “pre”calculus as a subject? Perhaps most importantly for students, how will this change impact their upcoming years? The Barefoot Times reached out to decision makers and peers to find answers and provide the full story.

Although the change might seem sudden and scary, the decision comes from several conversations and major changes in the Math Department as a whole. In order to answer these questions, the Math Department deferred to their chair, Alexi Burgess, to share the story of how Precalculus became the class formerly known as Precalculus. It’s important to underline that the subject matter in Precalculus is not going away; instead, the course is being retitled “Functions and Transformations” and made to be somewhat optional. Functions and Transformations is a title that Burgess feels more accurately describes what actually takes place in the class. The class is being changed to be a little more optional to reflect its place on “the tree of math,” as Burgess calls it.

Some students wonder, why the name change? Precalculus is becoming Functions and Transformations to signal a new path for the class. Instead of being what Burgess calls “a grab bag of random tools that aren’t even applied in Calculus,” the class is set to be a study of polynomial, rational, trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic functions; it even includes some Calculus topics, such as limits and series.

The change is an effort to standardize the course curriculum, and it resonates with students of Precalculus both past and present. Calculus student Harper Gowen ’26 has noticed the lack of standardization, observing, “There are instances in my Calculus class where my teacher…needs to re-teach something either because some people forgot it or because some people never learned it, and it makes it hard for teachers if there’s not a somewhat consistent curriculum.” The lack of standardization is also a problem for current Precalculus student Lucy Pettit ’26, who agrees with Gowen, noting, “it doesn’t feel like there is a consistent establishment of what should be taught [in Precalculus] and that’s not something I’ve heard about or felt in Algebra 2 or Geometry… and so I think that there needs to be more consistency.” Students express that an updated curriculum is needed. But if consistency is so important, why make it optional?

Calling Functions and Transformations (previously Precalculus) optional is a bit of a stretch, but while Burgess doesn’t want to get rid of the class, he is trying to de-emphasize it. This is partially because he believes “there actually isn’t a body of knowledge after Algebra and Geometry that you really need to know in order to succeed in Calculus.” He doesn’t mean that students are encouraged to skip the class, as “it can be very useful to mature mathematically an additional year; it can be useful to get more practice manipulating functions, which are then used in Calculus.” Even though the extra year can be helpful, the Math Department is developing a process to let students go from Advanced Algebra (formerly Algebra 2) to Calculus–but not without a decent amount of work. Although not entirely ironed out, the process would require departmental approval, summer work, and probably a lot of conversations with advisors, deans, and guardians.

How do students feel about this? There seems to be some disagreement within the student population. For Dean Adelman ’26, Precalculus is the last foundational course before more advanced math classes, rather than Algebra 2: “I feel like there’s a lot of random stuff that’s essential to a lot of different math. I feel like Precalc is sort of the jumping-off point into a lot of different things, rather than Algebra 2.” For Adelman, making Precalculus optional could mean students miss vital skills learned in the class. But current Precalculus student Sophia Schafer-Wharton ’26 doesn’t see the problem: “I’m glad I’m in Precalc, and I think I would opt in to take it anyway, but… having a way not to take it, that sounds good.” Whether or not the students agree, the path is now available, and these changes are a microcosm of a bigger departmental change.

The name change and de-emphasis of Precalculus is actually part of a department-wide change towards de-emphasizing Calculus. Burgess explained, “There’s no reason why we should set up this linear path with Calculus at the pinnacle, instead of providing a bunch of different routes, one of which might end with Calculus, one of which might end with Precalculus, one of which might end with Computer Science or Statistics, or maybe one-day Economics.” The change is meant to free up math teachers and further the Sequoyahan principle that each student’s educational journey is different but equally valuable.

The re-imagining of one class opens up many different paths for students to take part in and explore. Schafer-Wharton said of the change, “I understand the reasoning… and I do think that means that you can more personalize your own math journey.” Meanwhile, Dean of Academics Sean Hamidi summed up the possibilities that emerge with the “disappearance” of Precalculus: “[These changes could] engage students who might not be inclined to take a Calculus class, but when they think about something that overlaps with their interest or discipline, it might pull them in.”