Schedule Mix Up Starts Year in Confusion for Early College Students

A sudden schedule change caused confusion for dozens of early college students in early August, threatening the cancellation of a core advanced placement class. 

In an email sent August 5th to all sophomores enrolled in the Early College Program (EC program), Early College and Career Counselor Kristy Arakawa announced that a scheduling conflict had occurred with an early college course that required a sudden schedule change for 25 EC students. Hours later, the students were scattered into various classes they hadn't registered for. 

EC students were taken out of various classes including electives and core classes to fix the scheduling conflict with the early college History Course, HIST 151, which had originally been scheduled for period three. 

Ms. Zupancic, the Curriculum/Title 1 Coordinator, explains that the school uses Infinite Campus to make a schedule and that can create issues. She also added that the process is difficult since there’s someone who manually goes in to re-examine the schedule and “move the puzzle pieces around to make things work”.

“I had to switch my band class with the HIST 151,” said EC student Jake Albiller.  “I wish they asked instead of just emailing us and dropping classes.” Following the schedule fixes, another EC student, who chose to remain anonymous, was put into two classes for period three. “Where am I supposed to go tomorrow?” they said at the time. “Do I not go to a class?”

Maui Villanueva, a junior in the EC Program, says that she was pleased about the schedule change. Before the change, the HIST 151 course conflicted with a CTE course she had been taking since freshman year. Her schedule had a conflict that was actually resolved by the change. 

An ELA 10 research class, AP Seminar, was particularly impacted. Ten out of the fifteen AP students enrolled were suddenly removed, leaving only five enrolled. AP Seminar requires a minimum of six students, so the class was set for cancellation. 

Gisele Miller, an EC and AP Seminar student, was put into a general education ELA class to replace AP. After the switch, she was disappointed at the loss of AP as she was looking forward to using that class “to improve my skills for writing, researching, and working together with my classmates.”

Fixed?

Staff decided on a solution to the AP problem in a meeting the following day. They swapped the Hist 151 period with the AP Seminar period, saving the class from being cut. Yet, five students who weren’t part of the EC program continue to feel the effects. 

Currently, AP has been moved to period 1, and Students like Erica Domogma, who was only enrolled in AP and not part of the EC program, was suddenly called to make a choice between Algebra 2 Honors, her period 1 class, and continuing on in AP Seminar in its new period. “If I kept those two classes, I would’ve had to switch my entire schedule,” she said. “That would confuse me since I already adapted to my schedule that was given before school started.”

Christopher Apilado, an AP Seminar student in the same situation as Erica, also had to choose between AP Seminar and Algebra 2 Honors. Choosing Algebra 2 Honors would have meant he would be moved to general ed English to replace AP. Instead, he chose to keep AP because he feared that, in a general education class it would just “be like a review of what we’ve done in 9th grade honors.”

Hanan Oleiwan, another AP Seminar student, says that although the change caused her Ceramics elective, AP, and Geometry to be altered, she thinks that the schedule change wasn't so bad since it only affected her and a small number of students.