On January 28, 2021, Eleanor Roosevelt High School students grades 9th-11th in each class periods’ were asked to complete a Course Request form before the deadline of February 14, 2021, for their next years’ grade-level classes. Students were given a selection of three electives of their choice based on their next years’ grade-level (2022). All students were limited up to one response per each column, they were asked to place the appropriate answer of None for their auto-placed courses.

According to Seniors Kavya Ganesan, Hashem Washed, Richard Buie, Minh Nguyen, Monique Waston, Kayla Kim, and Chukwuebuka Okeke of the National Honors Society (NHS) of Eleanor Roosevelt High School, auto placed courses are “Simple! They are the courses that your school places you in. For Example, if you took U.S. History in 9th grade, you will automatically be placed in U.S Government in 10th grade.” Some students were unclear on why they had to select a choice for such courses in the first place.

Scheduling Coordinator, Grading Manager, and Attendance Manager for Eleanor Roosevelt High School is Mr. Scott Horn and he leads a very meaningful role in the ERHS community. Mr. Horn is well-known for attending to several ERHS students, especially when course requests deadlines are nearby, placing standardized requirements of grading achievements in course. This may apply for Advanced Placement (AP) classes , Science and Technology Course Requirements, Dual enrollment, and many more.

Some students worried about making mistakes on their forms. Ganesan, Washed, Buie, Nguyen, Waston, Kim, and Okeke have all recommended to their fellow peers that they “Shouldn’t stress too much about your course requests. Your counselors have you covered, If you need to take a class they’ll take care of it. You can always ask them or send us an email if you are stressed”.

What were the given resources that helped you through the process of completing your Course Request form, was it Family Members who have attended Eleanor Roosevelt in their past, Your Counselors or, Your Teachers? Did you use the resources provided by Mr. Horn like the “EROOS 2022 Course Offerings GR 09-12” Google Sheets?

Junior Caroline Lehman hadn’t encountered any confusion in the process of completing her Course Request form, but she was confused about “the administration wanting us to “prove” we had done it.”

Lehman thinks of the word Course as “of what core classes I will be taking, for example, which Math and Science core classes.” She didn’t fully understand why students were only allowed to choose electives and not core classes.

“I was also wondering why we didn’t have the option to choose backup courses, I am worried that if one or more of my electives are full that I will be placed in a class I don’t want to be in.”

Lehman expresses that “teachers and administrators could have been more helpful. In my experience, many of my teachers did not know how to talk about other courses or did not feel obliged to.”

Lehmans’ family and friends helped her the most in the completion of her course request form. “My family helped me throughout the process of thinking about what classes would be best to take for college, my future career, and how to keep my course load reasonable and sufficient”.

Junior Adaeze Ufomadudiscovered that she had came across a few difficulties in the process of completing her Course Request form.

“ I have done all the electives classes that I am interested in and I found no other classes interesting so I couldn’t decide what I wanted for next year’s electives. As a result, I had to pick the same electives repeatedly.”

Ufomadu has attended the same electives she has found enjoyable for the last three years. She was clueless about what she wanted for her next year’s electives, without any help from her grade level counselor.
“My counselor was not helpful during this period of course selection, they were helpful when I had already finished submitting my course request. Their response time was too long.”

Ufomadu claims that “The presentation directed to us by Mr. Horn helped, but I still had problems.”

As for Lehman and Ufomadu, they’ve both explained their difficulties with Course Requesting for next school year. Starting from the lack of help from certain administrators, counselors, and teachers, to the worrisome and fearful thoughts of having to attend the same electives each year, while being placed in an alternate elective due to a limited amount of space.

Ganesan, Washed, Buie, Nguyen, Waston, Kim, and Okeke have all been such a helpful group of seniors who are willing to lend a helping hand to any students in need of some more guidance or reassurance.