Students Create Petition Following Preliminary Reduction of AP French Classes Offered in the 2026-2027 School Year

For the upcoming 2026-2027 school year, only one section of Advanced Placement (AP) French Language and Culture will be offered to students as compared to two this year, largely due to an increase in enrollment in lower-level French courses and the impact of adding additional sections to the school’s budget.

AP French is offered to juniors and seniors who have completed French III, and is currently taught by Manuel Ramirez. In previous years, multiple sections of the class were available, allowing more students to enroll. This year’s reduction in the number of sections has significantly limited access to this course.

This decision was partly due to an increase in sections for other French levels. “We have more students entering Level III next school year which preliminarily has reduced a section of AP French,” Principal Seung Yu said in an email interview.

Administrative adjustments from previous years that created more sections of Level I language courses have affected the budget for AP French for next year. “A decision we made two years ago was to create additional sections of French I and Japanese I for incoming students in response to school needs. Consequently, it has required the school to budget additional sections in these languages,” Yu said. If teachers instruct more than a certain number of sections, they must receive additional pay, meaning that keeping a second section of AP French would increase staffing costs for the school.

When making these decisions, the programming office prioritizes fulfilling students’ graduation requirements, and three years of a language are required to receive the Stuyvesant diploma. “We have to maintain at least one section of AP because it is their third year language requirement for some students. For many other students, AP French would not be a requirement, but an elective,” Yu said. 

However, many students enrolling in AP French wish to take it as an elective, already having completed French I through III, and were both surprised and disappointed by this decision. Junior JP Proulx said students only learned that the class was being cut down when AP selections came out on May 22, 2026. “We were given no prior notice,” he said. Because many current French III students were assured they could move on to AP French if they wished, seeing the course unavailable on Talos caused disappointment among many. “We were kind of devastated,” he added.

Many students have dedicated hours of hard work into their studies over multiple years in the hopes of taking AP French. “I felt as if this wasn’t fair to me as a student and for my peers because we have worked towards this class since freshman year,” junior Grant Izzett said.

This decision has also affected the long-term goals of students in French. “As a junior who’s getting ready for college, I really need a rec letter from a teacher that I feel understands me the most and in a class that I personally love so much. So it being barred for me because of this decision is restricting me from opportunities with college,” Izzett said.

Many are concerned about the effect of the decision on other current French students in lower levels, especially for those who may want to take AP French in two years. “There’s going to be, say, 120 students in French III, and if there’s only 30 seats right now for an AP French section, you’re getting rid of 75 percent of those kids’ dreams,” Proulx said.

In response, Proulx and Izzett organized a petition for the restoration of the second AP French section. While the two have not received a formal response to discuss the matter with Principal Yu, the petition was supported by many other students who felt similarly. “More than half of the students taking French sign[ed] our letter request to Dr. Yu before we submitted it,” Proulx said.

While students acknowledge the necessity of prioritizing graduation requirements, they emphasize the value of the course and urge the administration to seek alternative funding solutions. “What we’re mainly advocating for is not to take away other classes of language, but for Dr. Yu to see how important it is to students and the rest of the people, how important taking another year of language is and maybe seeing if they could find the budget somewhere else, whether that’s through fundraising or pushing harder,” Proulx said.

Nonetheless, this alteration is not final, and is still subject to change. “We still do not have our FY27 [Fiscal Year 2027] budget so we cannot make final decisions about next year just yet. All of our decisions now are preliminary while prioritizing what we need to do at minimum,” Yu said. The FY27 budget, once passed by the City Council, is then allocated to public schools across the city by the NYC Department of Education. The budget pays for all school services, including the salaries of teachers, which often depends on their scheduling and number of classes. Before the amount of funding Stuyvesant will receive is finalized, the administration isn’t able to confirm decisions regarding the staffing and overall course availability for the coming school year.

The Stuyvesant administration is sympathetic towards students who will not be able to take AP French next year. “Every year, we have to make tough decisions for the betterment of the entire school so we have to consider tradeoffs. As principal I have to make these tough decisions but I always do so deliberately considering short and long term implications,” Yu said. “What I would say is be patient. I am fully aware of our situation with programming but as I stated, we do not have our FY27 budget and other key information to make any final decisions.”

The organizers of the petition express a mutual understanding of the careful consideration from the administration. “Above all, this is out of the highest respect for Dr. Yu,” Izzett said. “This is a very hard decision to make, and I’m sure he’s made it for many reasons. We hope that he hears us out in this scenario.”