At the start of the school year, according to Assistant Principal Valerie Arbizu, over 23 senior students were on the waitlist or petitioned to switch from College Prep Government (CP Gov) to Advanced Placement Government (AP Gov). In response, the administration converted a fifth-period CP Gov class into an AP Gov class, forcing the original CP Gov students to rearrange their schedules.
In total, Arbizu said 44 seniors from the affected classes had to adjust their schedules to accommodate the change.
“On Friday [Aug. 16th], they made the switch of CP Gov to AP Gov fifth period, which also changed my schedule and took me out of being a TA,” senior Cara Rogers said.
“It had a ripple effect on maybe one other class, and that was frustrating. I know that it also impacted some students who were already in CP Gov and were not asking for a change,” Arbizu said. “But to make those shifts happen, we did need to move a few students who were in the CP classes from one period to another, and that may have had a flip flop of one other class.”
The decision came after the release of official student schedules on Aug. 13, which had initially reflected most students’ February 2024 course selections. According to counselor Traci Kreppel, only about 95 seniors had signed up for AP Gov at first, while around 200 opted for CP Gov. Based on these numbers, the school counselors had scheduled three AP sessions — second, fourth and sixth periods.
“The master schedule is driven first by students’ requests, and then second by the actual school’s personnel. So, obviously, we want to try to give the students what they want, and build the master schedule around their requests,” Counseling Department Head Luis Mashek said. “But then part of that is also determined by [whether] we have the staff to teach the classes that they’re requesting, and [whether] the facilities support that request.”
According to Arbizu, the administration typically uses the previous year’s course enrollment to forecast the number of classes needed for the following year.
“You usually have about the same number of students who want to continue at that level of academic rigor in the same subject area. It was a major shift in what the request looked like, so we knew it was going to be something we had to keep an eye on,” Arbizu said.
Mashek said the difference this year had to do with timing — some seniors requested AP Gov much later than usual.
“Instead of telling us that they were interested in the course in the spring of last year, they’re now telling us they’re interested in the course in August,” Mashek said.
However, there were still students who were placed in CP Gov despite requesting AP Gov during the February course selection. According to Arbizu, these students were automatically placed on the waitlist before school started.
This was the case for senior Jack Flanzer, who was placed in fifth period AP Gov and had to switch his first, third, fourth and fifth periods to accommodate the change.
“This Monday [Aug. 19] was pretty much another first day of school,” Flanzer said.
Counselors stressed the importance of using the annual counseling presentations to make informed course selection decisions early in the process.
“It’s really important to pay attention to our counseling presentations when we do course selection because [the classes] you’re choosing in February and March determines what happens the following year,” counselor Carla Renzi said.
