Forced schedule changes are beneficial to majority

By Isabelle Chiu
Staff Writer

At the beginning of the school year at Mira Costa, students are randomly selected to change their schedule, with a note attached that states that the student is not able to see their counselor. The forced schedule changes are justified because they help reduce class size; therefore students overall will not be negatively affected by this change.

According to Mira Costa Vice Principal Ian Drummond, all forced schedule changes are due to overly large classes. Students are first asked to volunteer to change their schedule before the forced schedule changes start. As a result, a few people may be moved at a time, or an entire small class period may be cancelled causing all those students to have a schedule change.

According to Drummond, this has and will happen every year at Mira Costa. These schedule changes will help balance class sizes in order to get the optimal learning experience in classrooms.

Mira Costa administration tries to balance classes to have 36 students or less per class, which causes some students to change their schedule. According to Drummond, if these changes were not made, some classes would grow above fifty. Ensuring the student to teacher ratio is correct will improve the overall learning experience because students would get more attention from their teachers.

Some classes cannot accommodate more than the required amount of students because of classroom size. The remainder of the students may have to use the counter as a desk or have a crowded table, which will not allow them to comfortably learn.

Most of the forced schedule changes occur within the first three weeks of the school year. This is to facilitate students so they can adapt into their new classes early on. Major schedule changes later in the year will cause students to struggle even more through a new routine and can be detrimental to students learning, so it is appropriate that these changes occur within the first three weeks.

According to Drummond, the people that are chosen to receive a new schedule are done so randomly within a class period that has too many or not enough people. Mira Costa’s administration tries to make it as fair as possible so the students and teachers can both benefit from it. The system is reasonable since the administration tries to only make a few schedule changes per student, resulting in the majority of students receiving minimal changes to their schedule.

According to Drummond, It is not possible for this issue to be solved before school starts. Even though Mira Costa predicts the amount classes beforehand, students are always changing their schedules, whether it be due to elective switches or signing up for the a class they do not need a credit for, which will alter the plan. The administration is effective at handling these problems within the first few weeks of school.

Students are instructed not to see their counselors since there is nothing the counselors can do for them. If a student changes their schedule back to the way it was before, it defeats the entire purpose of changing schedules. This is unfair for some students, it is done for the good of the student body as a whole to ensure the learning experience is maximized to its full potential.

Ultimately, these forced schedule changes due to scheduling problems will not destroy students grades or ability to learn; instead it will solve the problem of oversized classes and will benefit both the student and the teacher.