Late last week, the list of class offerings for Liberty High School’s opening year were released, causing some confusion over why certain classes–such as physics–weren’t included.

Liberty High Principal Scott Kibby claims this list of classes is only a template written up with the minimum offerings for next year.

The district looked at the schedules of the students that will eventually go to Liberty and used that data to decide which classes absolutely needed to be offered.

“Last year, we pretended if Liberty opened this year, what would it look like?” Kibby said.

In addition, some higher level classes aren’t readily available due to the age distribution of the students in the first couple of years.

“We projected 250 freshman and 250 sophomores,” Kibby said. “If we were to get 250 juniors and seniors combined, then we can offer a lot more.”

Programs such as English Language Learning, Success Center and Special Education will all be offered based on the demonstrated needs of the students.

The inclusion, or lack thereof, of some varsity sports was also questioned, but Kibby says that the students’ needs will be taken care of.

“We’re going to be offering 14 of the 21 varsity sports,” he said. “For example, we decided we couldn’t do swimming our first year. But for students that want to swim, they can swim with the West team.”

Tennis and bowling are other sports that will be delayed.

In the future, Kibby thinks the activity options will expand dramatically.

“I’m hoping we’ll have show choir and have marching band and have robotics . . . people will want to come for junior and senior year,” Kibby said.

Posey Stoffler, a seventh grader at North Central Junior High, is zoned to go to Liberty in two years. She says that she would consider trying to opt out if she couldn’t take the classes she wanted, which include fine arts and theater.

“I would try to start a club,” Stoffler said. “But if I couldn’t I would consider transferring to West or City, because they are older and have more classes and opportunities.”

Limited class options could also lead to scheduling conflicts for students with irregular class combinations.

“That may cause some more problems in that regard,” Kibby said. “But the more kids, the more registration, the more staff… the better it will be.”

Despite concerns, Kibby wants to reassure students that will be going to Liberty that not a lot will change.

“I think it’s going to be really, really similar, just on a smaller scale,” he said.