In the 2025-2026 school year, Lightridge has introduced many new classes, including Aerospace Science, Etymology, and Archaeology.

Aerospace Science, taught by John Ferranti, is a project-focused class where students have the opportunity to do many unique hands-on activities. 

“I’m trying to make it as hands-on as possible,” said Ferranti. “ So it’s going to be a lot of projects, a lot of work with our hands, we’re going to be launching rockets and hopefully building some rockets. We’re looking at possibly trying to work drones in… so because it is new at the school, it gives me a lot of room for interpretation.”

Ferranti currently teaches in the CTE department.

“I didn’t go looking for an aerospace teacher position,” Ferranti said. “It just fits within my certification. Dr. Hitchman was hoping I would come over and offered that to me, and it seemed like something new and interesting.”

Sophomore Lizzy Mosley was interested in this class because of her passion for planes, specifically fighter jets. 

“I figured [this class] would be a cool opportunity to learn about the field, and learn about all the other things that go into aerospace,” Mosley said.

A new flight simulator installed by the county allows students the experience of flying a plane in their very own classroom. This flight simulator has the entire planet mapped out on it and can earn students hours towards receiving their pilots license. Mosley plans to continue this class next year because she enjoys these features of the class.

Gregg Greentree is an English teacher that has also been tutoring students in preparation for the SAT for more than twenty  years. This year he is taking on Etymology. In this semester-long course, students focus on breaking down the English sections of the SAT, learn about vocabulary and word origins, and practice essential test-taking skills.

Junior Hunter Vayda decided to take Etymology because he heard it was a good SAT prep class.

“[Colleges] look for good SAT scores, and since a lot of kids have over a 4.0 GPA it really separates yourself from them,” Vayda said.

Students participate in activities to strengthen vocabulary from Latin and Greek root words, to reading random articles, to word-of-the day presentations. Greentree notes that  an important portion of this class is its focus on test-taking strategy.

“Because the SAT is really not a conventional test of one’s knowledge… I have to build up students’ understanding of the test itself,” Greentree said.

Archaeology is a brand new class that was created by Chris Johnson. In order for this class to be brought to Lightridge, he established a curriculum, put together some standards, and submitted a proposal to the county with the help of Assistant Principal Dr. felicia Lewis. This class encompasses a wide variety of subjects that all fit under the umbrella of archaeology, such as anthropology, ethics, history, categorizing materials, and more. Johnson hopes to expand the subjects in this class in the future, and hopes to be able to cover more topics such as paleontology, museum studies, and archival studies. Johnson also plans to  include many hands-on field trip opportunities.

“We’re going to go on field trips where we can implement a lot of the stuff we’re learning,” said Johnson. “ Our first trip to a place called Historic Germanna, and we’re going to help them, and they’re going to help us dig and learn more about the job of an archaeologist.” 

He hopes to continue offering this class for as long as possible due to its long term commitments.

“I think there are lots of projects that I hope to start this year that would require long term investment, cooperation with local historical groups, like local archaeologists and I think the longer that those can be built up, the better the program will be,” said Johnson.

“I think it’s a great class environment because we all talk, and Mr. Johnson’s really nice, and he’s a great teacher,” said senior Erin Witt, who decided to take this new class because she plans to go into museum curation. “And it’s just fun to learn about ethics. That’s probably my favorite part.”

Archaeology is a class that any student can take interest in. 

“This isn’t just for kids who want to be archaeologists,” Johnson said. “It’s for kids who like the past. This is for kids who like history, this is for kids who like science, this is for kids who like law, because there’s lots of different things going on in the world of archaeology that I think interests a lot of people.”