Scheduling Complexities!

By Michael Hsu

New semester! New opportunities!

This semester the influx of 7 new students completed placement tests and chose their courses well ahead of schedule. Mr. Dobson cites this earlier confirmation of new students’ schedules and an efficient “form and spreadsheet system” behind prompt responses from guidance to students navigating course selections. However, with a growing student body -- the Dalat High School community has never been so big before -- and more opportunities for those in Learning Support/Exceptional Learners, certain courses have inevitably been stretched to or beyond capacity, including A block Home Ec, B block Forensics, C block Spiritual Disciplines, D block Media Lit, among others.

Seniors and, in particular, Juniors took advantage of the option to replace a study hall with an additional course, typically Media Lit. To accommodate this change, some students had to reshuffle their schedules. For example, Alicia Lim (‘24) switched from D block Bio to A block Bio to accommodate Media Lit in her schedule. Commenting firsthand about the different atmospheres in the Bio blocks, she responded curtly, “It's worse in A block.” Thankfully, Ms. Goh was able to keep her in Bio for one last day on the 12th before schedule changes kicked in the following day. According to Ms. Goh, she paid Mr. Chin “sincerely” for the temporary transfer.

On the other hand, a record low number of students enrolled in Band, with Mr. Kearney specifically citing a shortage of percussion players. Taewoo Song (‘23) and Peter Hsu (‘25) have been subsequently resourced to the musical endeavor. Nevertheless, second semester saw MVP Adam Lim (‘23) transferred back into choir. Expect excellent performance from the perfect pitch prodigy.

Notable Sound Booth resident Joshua Emmanuel (‘23), however, will not enroll himself in Tech II for the 5th semester… “I'm deeply hurt and saddened that I cannot take a class that I enjoy.” As a result, Joshua Emmanuel will not be able to advance to Tech VI. However, the Tech I class from semester one saw almost a complete reconstruction in Tech II: after fulfilled scheduled changes, Aaron Andrews (‘26), Aiden Boyd (‘26), and Taewoo Song (‘23) all managed to free their H blocks for a high-tech class with Mr. Roylance. To the sole senior who jumped ship, the freshmen expressed mixed sentiments: “I don’t honestly care because you were always breaking things” (Rio Randrianarivelo), “U betrayer” (Jueun Seo),  “Bro, why you’d have to leave?” (Aaron Andrews), and “It’s much more fun now” (Aiden Boyd).

Of course, some requests go against handbook policy or may require approval from multiple individuals in different departments. Overall, however, schedule changes were a logistic success. Kudos to Mr. Dobson for spearheading the inter-departmental effort, who remarked, “we even finished a day earlier than normal.” In contrast to the process from years ago, when “students waited in a queue outside the office,” the current system works better. Finally, our HS counselor encourages “students [...] to present suggestions or frustrations either directly or via PAL” to further improve the current system.

Special thanks to Mr. Dobson and Mr. Hieber for providing the background information in this article.