When they are not catching up on their summer assignments, most students prefer an easy, stress-free transition into the school year. However, the beginning of the 2012-13 school year has been anything but for many students as scheduling difficulties have placed them in a realm of uncertainty about their classes.
“I got put in three classes I didn’t sign up for; Business Information Management, Forensics, and Calculus BC,” senior Kate Hessong said. “I waited in line for forty five minutes, and they changed it.”
Senior Riley Heruska faced similar difficulties.
“I made a lot of specific requests at the end of last year because I’m the editor of the yearbook this year,” Heruska said. “They didn’t put me in both of the Yearbook classes, and instead put me in a bunch of other classes that I didn’t sign up for like Photojournalism, Creative Writing and a couple others, but I was able to get most of it fixed after waiting in line for about forty-five minutes.”
Other students were not as lucky. Senior Julia Belk was put in many electives she had not signed up for when she had originally signed up for study hall periods to take classes online.
“When I signed up for schedule changes the entire senior class was there,” Belk said. “It took me a few hours to wait for everything to be sorted out.”
Counselor Amanda Breeden says the unusual amount of scheduling conflicts have been the result of the altered athletics schedule. Under the new policy, male athletes are scheduled to practice before school and first period, while female athletes practice eighth period and into the afternoon and freshmen athletes practice during fourth period.
“Coaches are having more than one athletic period,” Breeden said. “That takes away periods that they could be teaching. That puts constraints on the numbers of students, like the classes are higher, and also the amount of periods people can teach. That puts some constraints on the system.”
Both counselors and students are working to fix schedules before the final deadline of Sept. 7.
