Schedule changes cause chaos for both students and teachers

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Katy Clark

With, many students switching out of classes in the first few weeks of school, Q Connection was used to track their schedules.

Katy Clark, AVT Editor

After three and a half weeks back at school, students and teachers are getting back to normal learning; however, student schedule changes have posed challenges for students and teachers alike.

“I have had [many student schedule changes] in both my college prep US and my AP Government Macro class. I don’t know the specific number, but [there are a] major influx of students either leaving the class or coming into the class over the first three or four weeks of school,” said Social Studies teacher Michael Boone.

Open from August 2nd to August 24th, students could submit a google form to make a change to their schedule, but the process took patience as counselors worked to fulfill the many requests while dealing with full classes.

“Getting my schedule change this year, it was kind of a long process because I not only had to email, but I had to meet with my counselor multiple times to see what classes have room and what classes I could switch into, and what classes I could drop,” said Tabasum Nawabi (‘23).

Schedule changes affect teachers in many ways, including their seating charts, textbook distribution, and simply making sure everyone has joined the google classroom. Since during the first few weeks many teachers have to learn hundreds of names, the constant change may also affect the process of getting to know their new students.

“I am already pretty terrible with names. In terms of getting to know students, getting to know names, [and] kind of building the class culture, it kind of poses an issue,” said Boone.

Many schedules cannot be changed with a push of a button on Q Connection. Because of the many classes offered on campus, with some offered only during single periods, some students might have to sacrifice an elective or be put in a different level than they prefer.  For students transferring from on levels to AP’s, they have to catch up to the pace, sometimes the day before a test.

“For me, my teacher told me to not do the past work, like it is all fine, but I still had to read all of the chapters, take all of the notes, go over all of the lectures, and prepare for the exams that we had so far,” said Nawabi.