With the start of the second semester came a change with the process of switching schedules. Counselors and administrators have changed the way students can adjust their semester schedule.
“It was a team decision,” counselor Erin Hayes said. “We didn’t want the mass chaos with a short amount of time. Our goal is to also have schedules for teachers, with the amount of students that they will have in each class.”

The change includes the addition of a form that students have to fill out and have their parents sign. With the new process, the counselors sit down with administration and they all decide on whether students get to switch classes.

“We’ve been better able to manage class sizes,” counselor Patricia Chandler said. “It’s more fair because it’s the order that the forms were turned in and the forms were also finished the same day that they were turned in.”

The deciding factor for any student trying to get out of a class was what class the student was in and what class they wanted to go to. According to Chandler and Hayes, the change has to benefit the student with what they want to do.

Some students disagree and say that the process is not in favor of them at all.

“I did not benefit from the process,” junior Katie Harris said. “My GPA is still suffering because they would not switch me out of Chemistry. I wanted to switch from Chemistry to Parenting and Child Development II.”

Other students who did get their schedule altered were still sympathizing with the students who did not get the change.

“I got switched out of Honors Human Anatomy,” junior Maddison Bohling said. “I did not like the process though because a lot of people who didn’t like their classes didn’t get out and now they do not want to do well in their class.”

Harris feels that the process is not fair.

“I do not like anything about the process change,” Harris said. “It is unfair. When they say ‘We ARE Mill Valley,’ they say they are empowering us, but they really aren’t.”

The counselors feel like the changes went more smoothly this time.

“We are still getting a large volume of requests,” Chandler said. “When they submit their requests it has to benefit them. I hope students will be more thoughtful when choosing classes. I wish they would put as much thought and decision when they decide to change their schedule.”

Bohling can agree with the counselors in saying that the process did go better this time around.

“It was quick,” Bohling said. “You just handed them the form and they got back to you by Seminar.”

The old process was that students just had to line up outside the counseling office in the morning or afternoon those first four days of the semester. It was first come, first serve. Now students just have to hand in the new form and the counselors get back to them within the day.

The former schedule process made students feel like they were being better aided.

“I would like to tell the counselors to know that we need to go back to the old ways,” Harris said. “Making students happier than trying to teach us a lesson about how we cannot switch out things in real life. They really just make a lot of people mad.”

Some students did like the process and say that the counselors should keep it.

“I would tell the counselors to keep it,” Bohling said. “But they need to let people argue why they want to switch out of classes.”