As the 2016-2017 school year has finally begun at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, students have experienced a wide range of scheduling issues in the first two weeks.

Many spent the first several days of the school year working with counselors to fix these issues, first in the auditorium and then in the cafeteria conference room as a line stretched far out the door. Many have also had to fill out schedule change request forms, and continue to wait as counselors process these changes.

Senior Jonathan Bertiz is one student who experienced several schedule issues. “I had orchestra in my courses before school started even though I didn’t sign up for it,” he said, going on to explain how he was able to get this fixed before the first day of school. “But the first day I noticed my schedule was still off because I had RP sixth period and AP Stat third. As a morning intern I was supposed to have RP third period with Ms. Twu and have release time at fourth.”

Luckily, he went on to say, he was able to get this resolved the first day of school. However, other students also had a range of scheduling problems, such as senior Imad Abdulrezak, who was mistakenly placed into Comp English instead of English Honors, as well as the wrong Research Practicum course. While his level of English was fixed within the first week, Imad said, “They just replaced it with Honors English, so I had two English classes in a row!” This was corrected by Ms. Jane Hemelt, he said, who placed him into RP Physical Sciences for that period. However, when asked about the amount of scheduling problems that have occurred this year, Imad responded, “Scheduling definitely has been bad this year, including compared to last year…I don’t know what happened this year, but it’s been really messed up.”

There are several factors that can create scheduling problems.”The magnitude of the school is one of the issues,” said Dr. Marisha Wright, co-chair of the Guidance department. “The problem arises when we have an influx of students interested in taking the class and not enough sections to meet the need.” She explained that this can be made more difficult when certain classes, such as band and orchestra, are only offered during certain periods. “This really becomes problematic, especially in junior and senior year with specific courses.”

Teachers have experienced a number of problems with their schedules, as well. Ms. Jennifer Pinckney, who teaches English, has experienced many scheduling issues in her classes. At one point, she had 38 and 36 students in her second and third periods, receiving “several new kids every day.” The overcrowding eventually resulted in a new English 12 Honors class, reducing Ms. Pinckney’s classes to 33 and 36. However, she said that she did feel there was an unusual number of scheduling problems this year. “I have not seen this much switching since I started [at ERHS],” she explained.

Ms. Beth Dunbar, who also teaches English, experienced problems as well, with 17 students being assigned to a comprehensive class when they should have been in English Honors.

“It is not an easy job for school counselors when schedules are not accurate,” Ms. Wright responded when asked what she would like students to understand about the scheduling process. “Often times it can be a puzzle and take time to work out, especially when each school counselor may have at least 100 schedule correction forms to process.”

Schedule changes are continuing to be made as the school year goes on, but this process does involve some compromises. For example, while Ms. Pinckney’s two senior classes did shrink, they still remain fairly large. As she pointed out, “I had to get four new desks.”