Schedule changes bring confusion
Many students requested changes to their schedules as the new semester begins. However, some students received changes to their schedules without a request.
January 13, 2015
The beginning of a semester always comes with schedule-change mishaps, and this semester’s start has been no different.
“I got put in Med-Term and AP Psychology,” junior Tess Mair said. “This change stressed me out because I had not taken the 1st semester of psychology.”
These random changes are not common or done purposefully.
“There was an issue with PowerSchool, the way that our system works when it creates schedules,” counselor Nancy Schweikhard said. “If, let’s say we had two Algebra 2 teachers one period, the system doesn’t necessarily keep the student with the same teacher, we had some of those issues. Also, some students [when filling out schedule preferences] just randomly put classes in, some kids may have put something as alternative that they may have forgotten they put as alternatives.”
The counselors recognize not all students are happy with their schedule and will adjust their schedules if possible.
“We’re happy to talk to [the kids] and work out if we need to make changes or if there’s a system error whatever, you know we’re happy to work with them,” Schweikhard said. “It’s just any time at the beginning of a semester it’s just super busy and so we just try to get to it as fast as we can.”
In the meantime, students make the best of their situation.
“They switched my 2nd and 8th,” junior Linley Youderian said. “And it sets me back because I missed days of class because I didn’t know it had been changed so I wasn’t going to the right class.”
The counselors are currently doing their best to make sure students have the schedules they want.
“Definitely, our goal is that [the students] are in the classes they need for graduation and that are the best fit for their interests and what they want to do after high school,” Schweikhard said. “We try our best to do that, sometimes it’s the PowerSchool, sometimes it’s the students and some of the choices they made originally or just how the schedule fits together. Like maybe they wanted certain classes but they were only offered one period and it conflicted, so there’s things like that that we have to work around.”
