The senior planning class has been a topic of discussion for students throughout the past three months, as administration continues to question whether or not senior planning is needed as a class.

In an email sent by administration and class planning on May 1, it was disclosed that senior planning would be an advisory period, rather than a class period, with those who take part in senior planning’s leaving their original homeroom classes.

Students feel as if they did not have a say in the matter, as a Google Form was sent out to voice students’ opinions. Instead of listening to the students’ opinions, junior Elena Filbert, who has been in class planning since freshman year, feels as if they did not give the students a voice. “All we got was a Google Form. There was no discussion or meeting about it. I would have liked to voice my opinion,” Filbert said.

Students in class planning work all three years before senior year to try to gain a spot in the class. This new class period has the intention to make the class more inclusive, giving other students a chance to join as they wish. However, students have been attending events since the beginning of their freshman year, leaving many to lose motivation to participate in these events. Sophomore Kailey Waxman, a participant in the sophomore class planning, believes that there will be less organization and time put into events if there is not a class that will come out of the hard work. “I think the change of splanning gives people less motivation to help their class during events,” Waxman said.

Juniors have already begun to prepare for their senior classes, with schedules hoping to reflect senior planning in them. With this change, juniors now have to find an additional class to take, which is made difficult because classes that are similar to senior planning are full. “I already planned my next year’s classes and I now have to fix my schedule because of this. It’s hard when I already have everything planned out and I made sacrifices to have senior planning as an actual class period and now it’s not,” Filbert said.

There will be a smaller period of time for splanning activities, as the class is going from 42 minutes to 30 minutes. This is only a 12-minute difference, however, across the entire course of the school year, 12 minutes is thousands of minutes that could be spent making an already under-funded class have the best senior year possible.

Class president Kelly Ren believes that although there is less time, the group will succeed as it has for the past three years. “This will affect the way that the club is run because we will have a shorter amount of time to get things done but I’m positive we can work around it,” Ren said.

Advisory is spent checking in with teachers, taking tests and relaxing, and with this new change, it is difficult to do so. “This change may affect other classes because the advisory time slot will not be as available for some students to get help,” Ren said.

This new change will allow for class planning to be more inclusive, but overall, the change will take time to get used to.