Have you ever wondered what happens when you’re incarcerated, but don’t want to test it yourself? The new class at Oyster River High School (ORHS) gives students a view into the world of law.
Criminal Law and Justice in America is a semester long course with suggested prerequisites of U.S. History and Citizen Education. According to the program of studies, students will learn about justice, police procedure, criminology, trial procedure, correctional systems, and juvenile justice. After a survey reported a considerable amount of student interest, Criminal Law was added this year to the program of studies. Because this class is new, teachers are more reliant on student input, allowing for more creativity and classes oriented toward student interests.
Because it is the first time this class has been run, social studies teacher Scott McGrath lets his students decide what topics they want to learn about. “We kind of make it up as we go – that sounds bad, but it’s Mr. McGrath’s first time teaching the class, so he’s kind of constructing the curriculum as we go. He gave us a very general syllabus, but it is student led, which I appreciate.” Said Rory Flynn (‘24), who’s currently taking Criminal Law.
During the first unit, which is an introduction into different approaches to justice, students made posters discussing various problems in the criminal justice system. However, the lenient structure of the class allows students to explore a concept more thoroughly, as long as it relates to the general topic, something Flynn is taking advantage of. “I’m doing it all about exonerations. We looked into a ton of different cases where people were wrongfully convicted based on different problems like wrongful confessions or forced confessions, stuff like that.”
Many students taking the class, including Flynn, plan to go further in this social science field. “In an ideal world, I want to go to law school. I figured that’s as close to the curriculum as I’m going to experience in high school,” he said.
However, you don’t necessarily need to be interested in becoming a lawyer or attorney to take this class. “I think if you’re interested in understanding how a big part of our country works, or if you’ve seen a court case and have questions about why things happen the way they did, I think this class would be really important and beneficial for you to take,” said Hayden Spires (‘24). Spires is looking to get involved in social work in the future, and she believes taking this class will help educate her in the field.
The idea of running a new class came to McGrath when he noticed that many students in his Sociology class were interested in diving deeper into the Crime and Punishment unit. After suggesting this idea to his peers, Criminal Law was put on a survey of new classes to be added, which came back with positive results. Out of 230 students who responded to the survey, 143 showed interest for Criminal Law. This year, 45 students signed up for Criminal Law as their primary social studies course.
After receiving this positive feedback, McGrath worked with other teachers in the social studies department to write up the curriculum for Criminal Law; most notably Matt Pappas, who this year moved to the middle school. “I sat down for a little bit, wrote down some of the stuff that I wanted to create, did some investigating and some research – found out what other high schools were teaching it, what topics they taught, just to get a flavor of what should be in the class and what shouldn’t be,” said Pappas.
Moreover, Pappas and other social studies teachers wanted to make sure that the content in Criminal law didn’t overlap with other classes covering similar subjects, like Cit Ed and Sociology. “I wrote the competencies, and Mr. Cangello looked at it as well. We both taught Cit Ed class together. We wanted to make sure that it wasn’t a duplication of that class: It was taking what you learn there and going deeper into a lot of the issues,” said Pappas.
More specifically, the Criminal Law course will expand on the amendment unit in Cit Ed, and talk more about “elements of the law, and how law is processed in our lives,” he explains.
In the future, the class may contain guest speakers, field trips to different law-oriented places like the Rockingham County jail, and mock trials as well. Although these haven’t been fully ironed out, students are excited to see what else this class brings.
– James Li
Mouth of the River 
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