Bay County’s Rutherford and Bay High Schools continue rapid physics course growth

This coming fall, Bay County’s Rutherford High School will have four times as many physics students as it did two years ago.

Meanwhile, Bay High School has added a second physics teacher to its staff to handle growth in its physics courses.  Last year, more half of all the district’s physics students attended Bay High School, and the school had more physics students than the entire district had the year before.

Rutherford’s physics teacher and the school’s 2016 Teacher of the Year, Rachel Morris, will be teaching a second year physics course for IB students in addition to two sections of AP Physics 1.  The three physics sections will have a total enrollment of more than 50, compared to the 14 students who took physics at Rutherford in 2015-16.

Bay High School’s physics enrollment exploded to 126 in 2016-17.  To handle the enrollment, Bay has hired one of its own graduates, Sean O’Donnell.  A graduate of UCF, Sean will be joining Nancy Browne at BHS in the fall.

Overall, the Bay District high school physics enrollment grew from 100 in 2015-16 to 235 in 2016-17.

Physics teachers from Rutherford and Bay High Schools working on a magnetic field laboratory on Wednesday evening.  From left, Rutherford’s Rachel Morris, Bay’s Nancy Browne, and Bay’s Sean O’Donnell