On Sept. 11, student services released the course change request form. The form consists of five steps along with a student questionnaire and a parent/teacher/counselor feedback section.
“As counselors we encourage the students to stay in their initial classes and give them a chance considering they’re already two to three weeks into the school year,” counselor Marcelo Valencia said. “And as students you also have six to seven months to pick your classes, so that’s why we discuss with our students to make an educated decision when picking those classes.”
On this form, there’s a different section for everyone that should be aware of the schedule change. The first step is to be completed by the student themselves, following that is step two which should be completed by a parent.
After the student has filled out steps one and two, they have to ask the teacher, whose class they are dropping to fill out step three.
Once steps one through three are done, students have to give the form to their counselor who will then sign it off and show it to the administrator.
“Essentially, they’re the ones that makes the decision if the students will withdraw from a class or not,” Valencia said.
Students have lots of time to decide what classes they would like to take, so why do they still choose to drop classes?
“I dropped journalism to take computer science and the reason I took journalism to begin with is because I was told I had a free spot on my schedule,” senior Uriel Sejas said.
The student questionnaire consists of five questions. All of the questions are wrapped around why you haven’t been successful in the class, whether you’ve discussed your difficulties with your teacher, whether you’ve stayed after school for additional help, what other steps you’ve taken to try and be successful and whether you’ve completed all the homework.
“I had to go to my counselor to get a transfer form then I had to have my teacher sign it, along with my parents,” senior Kourtnie Mauldin said, “I then had to take the form back to my counselor to have her sign it and show it to administration,” senior Kourtnie Mauldin said.
A lot of students believe that the process to drop a class is long and unnecessary. “Dropping a class shouldn’t be this difficult. The process takes so long and the longer it takes the more students are falling behind in the classes they plan on switching into,” junior Ayman Elhag said.
Other people will argue that dropping classes shouldn’t be allowed considering students have so long to decide what classes they are interested in taking,
“I decided to switch from criminal justice to IB business to help my GPA with the IB credit,” senior Adrien Henao said.
Many students want to switch their classes after a change of mind due to class experience being different than what they thought it would be,“I signed up for Criminal Justice last year to learn the laws, but over the summer I found a love for business. Which is why I want to switch into IB Business,” Henao added.
Although students cannot drop an IB class, they can easily be switched into one if they are interested.
Instead of students taking a class they aren’t interested in, they have the option to become a teacher’s assistant.
“Once students have filled out the course change request form, counselors start by filling up the T.A. positions in the offices first, i.e. the attendance office, student services and main office. As soon as those spots are filled, counselors can take requests of students who wanna be an assistant for a specific teacher,” Valencia said.
Although the request form was released, students are still unable to drop IB classes. The reason for this is because teachers and counselors want students to get used to the environment and the pace of the classroom for at least a month before beginning the course change process. Students are given the opportunity to try and drop an IB class on Friday, Sept. 29.