404 class not found

Confusion and frustration were what many students felt after checking their schedules for the first time in August. Within the first few days of the school year, guidance had received numerous visits over various scheduling issues, and the leading cause of these issues was the switch from A/B year-long classes to a hybrid of both year-long and 4×4 (semester) classes.

According to Guidance Counselor Michelle Lard, counselors were not fully prepared for how this hybrid scheduling would affect the process of arranging schedules.

“We knew we were going to do hybrid,” said Lard. “The problem was that we thought everything could fit perfectly and didn’t realize that it was going to be a complicated situation.”  

As a result, some students started school with schedules that had missing blocks/classes. Couple that with the teacher shortage and many students were left without classes they needed or wanted. 

“I wasn’t put in an English class for any terms,” said junior Jovann Sagayno. “I didn’t get fixed for a month and they put it in the second term. Because of that, my classes got rearranged.”

Issues were especially prevalent with year-long academy, Dual, and AP classes. Being that these classes have limited teachers and thus limited blocks; many students had to rearrange their schedules or even give up on some classes they wanted to take.

“My schedule was missing one of my academy classes and my third block for the first semester,” said junior James Torgerson. 

The first block classes that Torgerson wanted to take (AP Calc and AP Stat) would have had to have been removed to fit his academy class. However, he and his guidance counselor were able to figure something out.

“We decided I would take the academy class next year and keep the classes I had at first, along with a study block during my first semester third block,” said Torgerson.

Fixing schedule issues led to a whole new schedule in some cases. Other times, the issues could be fixed with a simple switch a classes. Either way, guidance did their best to find solutions as quickly and effectively as possible.

Other issues included imbalanced schedules (more core classes one semester and more electives in the other), confusion over attending 4×4 and A/B classes (everyday vs. every two days), and confusion over checking grades.

“Overall, change can be challenging, but once we work out the kinks and get used to the new format, we can focus on the positive benefits of the new schedule because there are many ways that the 4×4 schedule can benefit students,” said Math Teacher Mr. Michael Sibelu.

Speaking of benefits, hybrid scheduling allows AP and academy students to take their classes year long while 4×4 exists for classes that don’t need to be year-long. And thanks to this 4×4 scheduling, some students got the opportunity to graduate in January, like senior Oliver Demorest.

“4×4 [scheduling] helped me complete all of my credit classes within a semester,” Demorest said. “[After graduating early, I will be able to] attend TCC nursing classes while working full time.”

Administration and the guidance department are working to ensure the same issues won’t happen again next year.

“Some of the academy classes (may) be 4×4 so they can correlate with the core classes that are currently 4×4. And we’re going to be better prepared next year,” said Lard. “This was something entirely new for all of us, so now that we’ve found some of the issues, we’re able to try to make sure that they won’t happen next year.”