CLARKSVILLE – Students taking Chemistry 1 at Clinton-Massie High School this year may have more information to digest than students in previous years.

Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 2 are essentially the same class, which causes problems with the state’s curriculum, said Robyn Donisi, curriculum director for Clinton-Massie Local School District at Monday’s school board meeting.

“Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 2 use the same book,” Donisi said.

She discovered the fact that both classes use the same book when going over the list of books the high school’s science department needs to order for the upcoming school year.

After learning that both classes use the same textbook, Donisi said she looked at the book’s objectives online and then compared them to the class objectives. She found Chemistry 1 takes the first half of the book’s objectives while Chemistry 2 takes the second half of the textbook’s objectives.

“We’ve taken one course, chemistry, and we broke it into two classes, each worth one credit hour,” she said.

Donisi said she consulted the state’s education department and they were surprised by what Clinton-Massie was doing.

“I talked to many people from the state and they said, ‘You can’t do that,’” she said.

Donisi said she is unsure of how long there has been two chemistry classes, but she said the district is working to be compliant with the state again.

Another issue that Donisi uncovered was students were not sitting in class enough hours according to the state.

The minimum amount of hours a student must have in a regular class is 120. For lab-based classes, such as the Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 2 classes, students must have 150 hours of instruction, Donisi said. Clinton-Massie students currently only sit through 135 hours of instruction.

“That’s a master schedule issue,” she said. “It has a domino effect.”

Donisi said she and the master schedule committee have a plan to fix the issues with Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 2 for the 2016-17 school year.

In order to fix the class problems, Chemistry 2 will not exist after the 2015-16 school year, she said.

This year’s Chemistry 1 class will plan to hit all the objectives in the textbook since students will not have the option to take Chemistry 2 next year.

“We’ve got a plan and we’re going to take care of it,” she said.

The next Clinton-Massie Local School District board meeting will be Sept. 21 at 7:30 p.m. in room 533 in the middle school library.