Electives

Sixth Grade

Sixth grade students have one elective period. The sixth grade elective options are the following:

• Explorative Wheel

• Band (Brass, Woodwind, Percussion Instruments)

• Choir 

• Orchestra (String Instruments - Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass)

• Study Skills/Directed Studies

Explorative Wheel offerings vary by year. Students experience a quarter-long version of four different 7th/8th grade elective offerings. They do not choose which wheel courses they take. Students are assigned a starting class on the wheel and move with their cohort group to the next rotation on the wheel. Below are the 2025-2026 rotations. 

Study Skills/Directed Studies is a class where students work on their organizational and executive functioning skills and have time to complete classwork and homework with assistance. Directed Studies is for students with an IEP. This class is taught by one of our education specialists. Students without an IEP would take the equivalent class, which is Study Skills.   

Seventh & Eight Grade

Seventh and eighth grade students have two elective periods. Some electives are year-long, while others last for asemester. Please note that while we try our best to accommodate preferences, we cannot guarantee that every student gets all of their elective choices. Courses are subject to staff availability and schedule restrictions. Twice a year, in August (for first semester) and December (for second semester), we do provide students the opportunity to submit an elective change request form and do our best to move students to other electives based on space.

Here are the current elective offerings for 2025-2026:

• Animation (semester and year-long)

• Art (semester)

• Band (year-long)

• Ceramics (semester)

• Choir (year-long)

• Computer Science (semester and year-long)

• Culinary Arts (semester)

• Directed Studies (year-long)

• Fun with Physics

• French 1A and French 1B (year-long)

• Geometry

• Guitar

• Journalism (semester)

• Photography (semester)

• Orchestra (year-long)

• Robotics (semester)

• Spanish 1A & 1B (year-long)

• STEM Exploration (semester)

• Speech & Debate

• Strategy & Game Theory (semester)

• Study Skills (year-long)

• Study Government (year-long)

• Teacher Assistant (year-long, 8th grade only)

• Yearbook (year-long)

*For language classes, students take the 1A class in their seventh-grade year and the 1B class in their eighth-grade year. Two years of middle school language classes (1A & 1B) count for the equivalent of one year of high school credit. This means students will start high school in either Spanish 2 or French 2.

*For Band, Orchestra, and Choir there are two different levels. Students may audition to be placed in the honors (higher level) classes. No experience is required to participate in Choir. For Band and Orchestra, students must have at least a year or two experience to be in the non-honors class.

*Students must apply and be selected for Student Government and Yearbook. Students must complete the application form, have two teachers fill out a recommendation form, and complete an interview to be eligible for either of these classes.

Here is the link to the 25-26 Course of Study that contains descriptions of our elective classes: Ralston 2025-2026 Course of Study