A new policy has been instituted by the principal: no changing or dropping classes without approval from guidance, parents, and administration. Every year in the past, if a student has wanted or needed to change a class, they’ve been allowed to. This policy could lead many students to bad grades and maybe even failure.
If you go to the guidance office for schedule changes, you’ll probably hear the new slogan, “If you choose it, you stick to it.” In other words, if you picked classes not knowing what you were getting yourself into, oh well. The administration thinks that if students pick their classes, they need to hold to it. But what if you got yourself way in over your head without knowing you were going to?
I don’t think this policy is fair. Administration can’t expect students to stay in a class they’re struggling in or a class that they know they’re going to have a hard time in. I wouldn’t want to fail a class and risk lowering my GPA because the administration made me stick to a decision I made last year.
Students’ lives can change drastically over the summer and maybe their current situation prevents them from being succesful in certain classes. Administration should take that into consideration. Another problem is some students and teachers just don’t get along, and this could disturb the learning environment for all the other students in the class. Also, what if a student signed up for an elective and realized the first week that, for whatever reason, this class was not for him? He should be able to go to guidance and withdraw. It should not take a committee to decide.
What I think is most ridiculous is the new process you have to go through, if they even consider changing your schedule. Now you have to schedule a meeting with your parents and the principal, or have the principal call a parent. They then have to come to an agreement on what you should or shouldn’t be taking. I think that it’s your classes, your education, and your schedule. As long as you’re not just trying to get out of something unnecessary, and have all your required classes, why should it really matter? Obviously your parents aren’t going to want to see you do bad in school, so they’re most likely going to agree with you anyways.
But still, this is what we now have to go through and it may be very stressful and time-consuming to some. Class of 2012’s guidance counselor Mrs. Brady has said, “Students need to think long and hard about what they want to take the next year.” I think that every student is different, and if we want our schedules changed, we should be allowed to change them.
