While the system presented problems to guidance last year, it ran much smoother this year, guidance counselor Leslie Kersha said. Sophomores and juniors once again used the online method of entering class preferences earlier this month to ease the process for guidance counselors.

“I think that a lot of the glitches that were in [the system] last year were cleaned up, so I do think that the process was smoother,” Kersha said. “That being said, there are still some things that will need to be kind of changed and modified for next year, so that it’s even better. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was definitely an improvement over last year.”

While the school tries to keep improving the system for easier use, Kersha believes the online process of entering course requests is not only practical, but also good preparation for students seeking education after high school.

“Part of what we try to do here is prepare students for … post-secondary plans, which for a lot of students that’s college, and when you get to that level, you are going to have to register for your own classes,” Kersha said. “And I think it’s something where students are on computers a lot, and it just makes sense for them to go in and enter their course requests, rather than having a person in the guidance office who sits there and enters all 1,800 students’ course requests.”

Students also had a variety of new course options to choose from. Along with the addition of more online courses, the science department developed several new course selections, including Zoology, Entomology, Introduction to Exercise Science and Advanced Placement Environmental Science.

Science teacher Kerri Graham said departments undergo an evaluation process each year to determine which aspects of their sections they can improve upon. The science program’s most recent goal is to get students more interested in taking science courses by offering a wider range of elective choices for students.

“One of the things that through our program evaluation that we have been really wanting to do is we’ve been wanting to find high-interest electives … for the student that might not normally be engaged in science or the typical Chemistry class might not get them excited about learning about science,” Graham said. “So we wanted to provide other electives that aren’t necessarily [Advanced Placement] electives for all students to take.”
By Alyssa Sykuta