Every year, students go through the course selection process. However, inevitably, not everyone’s schedule will be as they wish next year.
According to administrators, changes to the Silver Guide 26-27 are working to make the course registration process more navigable, and impose clearer guidelines on when and why students can drop classes.
Due to Haven’s more flexible and elective-rich curriculum, assistant principal Mrs. Andrea LaPira emphasizes that it is impossible for every student to get their ideal schedule.
“In theory, by the beginning of the year, we only have a small number of kids who don’t have what they need,” LaPira said. “Other schools, if you had a lockstep curriculum, it would be easy. But we don’t.”
LaPira notes that at Haven, students can choose from many unique learning paths. She points out the need to be mindful of the subjectivity of peers’ advice on course selection.
“I think students get a lot of their information from each other, but sometimes it’s helpful to ask the teacher,” LaPira said.
Electives teachers pitched their classes at an electives fair on Feb. 20, the same day as the course registration assembly. LaPira hopes that this will make teachers more accessible to students for questions.
“The pottery classes are always really fun,” senior Andy Waltman said. “And I’ve heard people rant about them, but I never tried doing pottery. So if they had an electives fair, I think I would have tried that, and then done the class if I had liked it. But now I don’t get to know, because I’m a senior.”
In his community bulletin on Feb. 11, principal Mr. Andrew Benzing noted that Haven is proud to offer more than eighty elective options for students.
“This is only possible because of careful sectioning decisions based on student selections made during the spring selection process,” he stated. “Once the master schedule has been created, changes to elective selections can negatively impact the overall program by straining our resources and creating imbalanced class sections.”
Benzing urged students and parents to approach course selection “thoughtfully and intentionally.”
“After schedules are finalized, future changes will be limited to addressing needs rather than preferences,” his email stated.
“The good news is that our students have many exciting opportunities to choose from, but now is the time to make those decisions carefully.”
According to counselor Mr. Gavin Stewart, choosing classes can be a careful balancing act between taking classes that you want to take and classes that your friends are taking.
“Understandably, there’s a lot of anxiety around the classes that you’re taking, right? I totally get that. And I think that there’s a lot of anxiety, especially around who’s in my class. It’s a big thing for when you’re in ninth grade and it’s hard to make new friends, and it’s hard to be in a place where you don’t know many people,” Stewart said.
Because Stewart works primarily with freshmen, he tries to be especially mindful of his students when it comes to changing courses.
“I see it as an opportunity for education,” Stewart said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, you signed up for this class. We really like it if you make sure you sign up for classes you want to join.’ We also want to know the why too — what is the reasoning for [wanting to switch]?’”
One invalid reason for switching is selecting classes based on the teacher, which Stewart calls teacher shopping. Yet sometimes, even when students have justification beyond teacher shopping, they are unable to change classes due to various other factors.
“I can’t grant everybody’s wish,” Stewart said. “But on the other hand, there is a skill that you learn from not necessarily getting everything exactly the way you want it to be, and there’s some growth there from the student side that I think is really important.”
Ultimately, Stewart believes that many students did not regret staying in the classes their schedules assigned them, even if they didn’t feel like the class was a good fit at first.
“At the end of the year students might come back and say, ‘kind of glad I took that class, because it was tough, but I overcame that challenge,’” Stewart said.
Waltman suggests students take the classes they like over anything else, and thinks elective spaces are undervalued in favor of doubling up in a subject.
“If you’re going to register for your courses, don’t double up unless you really, really want to go into that subject, because otherwise you just lose a free slot in your schedule,” Waltman said. “Go to an elective, and when you’re doing electives, just do the ones that sound fun to you.”
