With a new school year comes new schedules. As students get to know their new teachers and courses for the year, it’s inevitable that a number of students will have to deal with one of the unavoidable issues that come with a new year, schedule conflicts.
Many students are contacted by their counselors prior to schedule and packet pick up day regarding schedule conflicts.
“It tends to be more juniors and seniors [who come in] because they have more electives which gets more complicated,” counselor Mark Vitelli said. “As ninth graders, they don’t really have a lot of choices.”
Whether it be a class becoming unavailable due to a lack of students registering for it, courses not being available at certain periods or classes being overloaded with more students signed up than the cap allows, many are forced into a situation where difficult decisions have to be made.
These decisions include having to switch to different classes, dropping an elective and selecting a different one or even taking a course that does not fit into a student’s schedule online.
“When I saw my schedule I realized I was missing a W8 class,” senior Heaven Lemma said. “I also didn’t have a class I really wanted which was Psychology that was only offered R3 and W6 which conflicted with my Peer Tutoring class only offered during R3.”
When these types of conflicts arise, counselors discuss the problem with students in order work around them.
“I ended up dropping IB Biology so that I could be able to get into Psychology during W6,” Lemma said.
Another common issue from year to year are classes no longer becoming available due to various reasons including a lack of student enrollment in the course, funding, etc.
“One class I was not able to have was IB Computer Science because it was no longer available,” senior Benjamin Lee said.
With electives that students sign up for not being available at times, students typically select another elective during their available periods that would fit into their schedule.
This is more common with upper classes pursuing more difficult IB courses that are only offered during one period.
“Another problem I had was that I didn’t have IB Business on my schedule because it was conflicting with my IB Physics HL class,” Lee said. “I am trying to have both classes on my schedule because they are my favorite classes so my schedule could change a lot.”
While some students not always willing to make major changes to their schedules, another option is to take an online course in order to make room for another class or elective during the school day.
However, when considering class changes, counselors also look at the student’s path to graduation.
“If they [students] are switching classes, I need to make sure that they are staying in classes they need in order to gradaute,” Vitelli said.
Counselors will continue to discuss options with students in order to have them enrolled in their most desired classes.
Schedule changes may potentially not be addressed until past the first week of school or even later at times.