Signing up for next year’s classes is an important step that students always look forward to. How are students expected to feel if, in this time of joy, they get a notification from their counselor that the class of their dreams is cancelled?

Classes do not run for a variety of reasons that include staffing and a lack of students who sign up for a course. Since the school has to run the core classes that are required to graduate, elective classes are the ones that get cut. “The county sets a cap limit on core classes, what you need to graduate, so we have those parameters set,” Resource Counselor Elizabeth Robinson said.

After the core classes are all staffed, the school looks at how many elective classes and teachers are left. If the school can run an elective class, they try to make each section of it as close to equal as possible. “We look at how many kids sign up, what does that mean for how many sections we would have to have, we then have to look at the staffing in those departments those electives are in, [and see if] we have [any staffing] left,” Robinson said.

Since classes have to have a minimum number of students to run, electives that only a few students sign up for can not run. “Sometimes we just don’t have the staff allocated to run a class, or for example 10 kids have only signed up for this elective class, we can not run a class with 10 kids, especially if that teacher can be used to alleviate numbers in a core graduation requirement class,” Robinson said.

Though it is not a definite number, the school usually looks for a minimum of 28 kids in a class for it to run. Fewer students usually mean that there is not enough interest in a class to make it run. “It really is determined and dictated by the staffing allocation; ideally 28 is usually a good minimum, solid number to hopefully ensure a class, anything under that is getting kind of dicey as to whether we can or not based on staffing, it all comes back to staffing, that is the driving force,” Robinson said.

A class not running can be frustrating for the interested students. These students signed up, and now they have to scramble to find another course. “If one of my classes for next year did not run I would be very frustrated, even though it is nobody’s fault it would still be annoying,” junior Alex Chai said.

These cut classes also cause students to miss the learning and knowledge that the class teaches. Even though they are electives, they still teach valuable information and life skills. “Classes that don’t run end up being a missed learning opportunity; if my dream class did not run I would be sad,” junior Arijeet Thayavalliyil said.

The counseling department finds out which classes do not run with plenty of time for students to select a different class. “We as counselors hopefully have that information by the end of April, as to what we’re doing with our classes and with our staffing so that we have the time to meet with a student,” Robinson said.