AHS schedules lack balance and realistic planning
In my three years at Aurora High School, I have gotten to organize my schedule four times. Each scheduling period arrives in January, looking months ahead, and centers around a conversation with the guidance counselor, as well as meeting with teachers to get signatures to move up and on to tougher classes. This system is used to ensure each student meets all their graduation requirements and takes the right classes for them. But from what I’ve seen, the only movement you can have is up. Deciding to drop down to a lower level of a course is often a bit of a struggle, and has proved impossible for many of my fellow students.
For example, I am an english and arts centered person who wants to study writing in college, yet when I spoke with my guidance counselor about taking a more art and english heavy schedule, I was met with resistance. Having met my math requirements, I figured I should take Statistics my junior year and finish high school learning what I want to do for the rest of my life, none of which involves any math or science. Unfortunately, that is not the correct path to take here at Aurora.
I was pressured into taking AP Statistics after hours of discussing taking AP Calculus over the next two years, a path many of my friends with undecided majors are now taking. I emailed three different colleges, one being the hardest college to get into in Ohio, to prove that as an art major, they would not care if I took AP Calculus. Each one responded they would rather see me take classes to improve the knowledge of my major. I had the same argument with a teacher, who told me if I don’t take AP Calculus I might be sacrificing my dream school.
Throughout my own struggles with the scheduling system, I have found that many other students are having the same problem. Several of my friends will be taking all AP classes in their senior year, others are skipping out on an art credit because they don’t have time in their schedules due to all the science courses they were pressured into. “If you don’t know what you want to be, take AP math and science!” seems to be the rallying cry at schedule time each year.
Electives seem to have become a ridiculous idea at AHS. There are very few students in most business classes, even though business is a popular major. Most elective classes are riddled with only seniors who don’t want to have a hard year, and are labeled “blow off classes.” Why is a course called a “blow off class” if it’s not AP? Although AP classes can be valuable in being accepted into higher-ranking colleges, they are not essential to a good education. Electives can be extremely valuable, especially to the undecided student, in that they can have the opportunity to experience a new course they have never gotten to take and could fall in love with, like business or drama.
The Excel Tech program is also lessening in popularity, with the lowest number of students ever attending the field trip this year. These programs can be great opportunities to stick out in the crowd, or provide an alternative to the traditional four year college. A student who wants to become a cook or a mechanic can get a head start towards the education they need for their field of work by going to these programs. Going to college is not for everyone, even though it may appear as the only choice these days.
Additionally, it seems to me that anyone who is not taking at least three AP classes is labelled a “bad student.” Where are the other factors though? Is there a section on the college application where you can fill out “worked twenty hours a week” to show that you don’t have time to stress yourself out with such difficult courses in every subject? And what about those students who have not decided what they want to be yet? Shouldn’t every student gain the valuable experience of having taken classes on both the analytical and creative ends of the spectrum in order to discover what they want to do? Personally, I never knew how much I would enjoy art until I got the chance to take it, a chance that many students cannot find enough space in their schedules to get.
Even the more math and science centered students deserve to have exposure to the more creative classes. When the AP Biology course was changed into a two period class, a group of such students immediately went to the administration asking if they could still take band with so little space left in their schedule. Luckily the problem was worked out, but with the ever increasing amount of math and science to take, music classes are slowly being pushed out of many students’ schedules.
The guidance counselors like to talk to us about balance and finding the right happy medium for each individual before we decide our schedules. However from my perspective, the educational climate of AHS doesn’t seem to embrace such balance. This pressure to challenge ourselves seems excessive, and it can cause even the best student to burn themselves out before they reach college. There has to be a better way to get students to push themselves while actually maintaining true balance between school, sports, work, health, and a social life.
