Every year in April, M-A students sign up for next year’s academic and elective classes with their counselors. However, by the beginning of school, some students inevitably get placed in classes that they did not want to take, or are not allowed into a certain level of a subject due to conflicting classes. Some believe that the growing student population is not proportional to the constant amount of teachers, however administration has not confirmed this statement.
An anonymous junior stated that “since ceramics and journalism was overfilled, [she] was forced to take an elective class that [she] had little interest in.”
Like many other students, she suffered from conflicting classes; too little opportunity to take the classes you want, because too few classes are being taught on that subject.
Still, counselors take into account scheduling issues that are unavoidable, “Singleton conflicts” as counselor Laura Duran put it. She continued, “Counselors include these limitations in college letters of recommendation when a student is unable to take a requested course due to scheduling issues.”
This resolves some concerns about fulfilling academic elective classes for college resumés but it does not solve the issue of student desires.
Regulations for schedule changes have also been adapted in the past few years. ‘Horizontal’ changes are not allowed. For example, if a student signed up for Marine Biology but wanted to switch to Physics, the school would not grant this change. However, if a student was placed in AS Physics, their request to switch into regular Physics could be granted. Note, switching from a regular class into an AP will rarely be permitted.
Senior Anthony Marini consulted his counselor last spring about going into AP Environmental Science (APES) but he was put into Marine Biology instead because APES was filled. Marini said that he was left on the waiting list and his counselor “told me that I could probably switch in at the beginning of the year and I emailed [Mr. Losekoot] about it but he never responded.”
He continued, “then at the assembly [Mr. Losekoot] said they weren’t allowing people to change courses other than level changes.” Marini felt too discouraged to continue the frustrating pursuit over his schedule change and “just dropped it.” The most nerve-racking part of the whole situation was that he “knew people were dropping the course and there was room” but he still was not admitted into the class.
Even though some of these scheduling issues are unavoidable, some regulations are irritating for students. Many people believe seniors should have priority over classes and should not have to deal with such class conflicts. While the letters of recommendation by counselors address scheduling problems, they do not necessarily solve student concerns.
