Back to school week thrown off schedule at Tehachapi High School
Back to school week thrown off schedule at Tehachapi High School
By: Carin Enovijas
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Posted by editor Tue Sep 5, 2006 16:36:06 PDT
Viewed 1087 times
0 responses 0 comments The first day of school. Teachers spend the last few weeks of their summer feverishly preparing for it. Students dread it all summer long and moms and dads look forward to everything but buying the new school clothes.
This year’s first day of school at THS brought more surprises than usual, as three new counselors and a new vice principal worked to sort out scrambled schedules for nearly 1,500 students.
A Tehachapi News blog titled, “The schedule fiasco,” posted by “THSkid,” describes the scheduling mix-ups that began with orientation one week prior to school.
“Long lines. Pink slips. Stress. Too many kids here, not enough there. These are just a few things that have occurred since the school managed to mess-up everyone's schedule. No, not just one or two kids- everyone, all 1,400 of us,” said the anonymous student posting.
Phone calls received from angry parents described classes with as many as 60 students, and some classes that had no teachers assigned. While others reportedly removed their children from THS' enrollment entirely.
As dictated by the district’s media policy, Tehachapi High School’s Principal Michael Arredondo referred to Superintendent Marian Stephens' office to address the auspicious beginning to the 2006 THS school year.
Tehachapi Union School District’s Chief Administrator of Curriculum, Lisa Gilbert, said that Superintendent Stephens has been visiting the site every day and meeting with administration.
“Dr. Stephens has approved the addition of seven new sections that will increase the student’s options for classes and decrease some of the larger classes,” she said.
Gilbert attributed the scheduling mix-ups to a lack of training with the computer software used to generate the schedules.
“There was a change of administration and we lost the long-time counselor who was in charge of master scheduling. We have a brand new team and everybody had to learn new [procedures and software], as well as having a new vice principal in charge.”
Gilbert said that full resolution is expected this week and that district staff has been providing the counselors with training and support for the computer system.
In addition to the new counselors and vice principal, eight new teachers started at THS this fall, and Gilbert said that cooperation and communication has been very positive.
She said that many teachers have volunteered to teach the newly added classes during their prep periods.
According to Gilbert, a higher enrollment is not the reason behind this year’s difficulties, as district-wide there were only 35 new students enrolled.
“High school student’s schedules are very complicated, and during the first week of school we’re always doing some leveling out of the minor details,” she said, adding that this year’s difficulties were not typical.
She also said that the current enrollment numbers are based on the body count, or number of students who have come to school, and that those numbers show about 90 to 100 students are still considered no shows. She said that those student’s parents will be contacted at their homes to find out if they have moved or are simply not planning on attending, for whatever reason, before adjusting the numbers in the system.
“It’s always a matter of comparing what’s in the computer to the bodies showing up for classes,” she said.
As for concerned parents, Gilbert said that, for the most part, they are being referred to the administration at the high school.
“They can best answer their concerns and refer to the needs of a specific child and their schedule. They [the counseling staff and new vice principal] are working very hard to work with students and parents,” she said.
Although it’s not the way the new counselors would have preferred to meet their student’s parents, Gilbert said that the overall response to the new counseling staff has been very positive.
“We are very pleased with their efforts. We realize things could have gone better and we’re making every effort to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” she said.
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