Course Registration for 2014-2015
Words to the Wise Regarding Course Selection
This week we began the process of registering students for courses next year. The Curriculum Guide for 2014-2015 is online and has been mailed home as well. As always, it is full of great options for students. This year I devoted extra time to meet with various parent, advisor and student constituencies to be sure I was delivering some common messages about the process. If you were not in attendance at any of these sessions, I can summarize the following major points:
- We want students to be excited about our course selections and to look for new ways to challenge themselves every year. That said, we don’t want them to overload either. At sign-up time, ambition can get the better part of a student who may think 7 courses in the fall is a great idea. But I want them to think about how they will feel in October when they have 2 papers due, 3 tests, a soccer game and choir practice. In other words, it’s always better to think ahead to the worst-case scenario when considering total load. Advisors have all been trained to look out for kids in this case, and Liza Skipwith, the class deans, and I also review schedule sign-ups. The college counselors also review schedules for rising seniors. The bottom line is we want the appropriate level of rigor for every student, and of course that rigor quotient is different for every student.
- Please follow the departmental recommendations of the world language and mathematics teachers. Sometimes students and parents want to move too quickly through these subject areas, and the result is a student who is stretched beyond what is reasonable (see point 1 above). We give a lot of thought to the recommendations, based on the student’s track record AND past experience with other students.
- There are exciting new electives in the English and social studies departments for rising juniors and seniors. We ask that all students put their top three choices per trimester. Because of scheduling constraints, students need to be comfortable with getting their second or third choice, although we certainly try our very best to get them into their first choice options. We also ask students to think more about the subject matter of these electives, as opposed to choosing based on who will be teaching the course. While some teachers are very much aligned with particular courses, other electives have traditionally had multiple different teachers involved, so there is no guarantee that taking “Mr. X’s class” will be the same next year as it has been in the past.
- In addition to our usual computer science courses, we have added two new elective courses so that freshmen and sophomores in particular can take trimester-long computer science courses to expose themselves to this exciting field. Based on our recent success with the Day of Coding, we know many students will enjoy and benefit from these courses.
Students should take the course sign-up process seriously and do the best they can to reflect their intentions for the next year. That said, we know changes may need to occur. We can certainly make adjustments later in the spring, or even further down the line if necessary. Upcoming advisor conferences (March 14) are a great time to review what your student has signed up for and discuss with the advisor the appropriateness of certain selections.
Please feel free to call or e-mail me in the meantime, or contact your child’s current teachers for other questions about curriculum or future courses.
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