Good Morning Students and Parents,
We are rapidly approaching the COURSE SELECTION process for the 2017 school year. The parent/student portal for selecting courses will open in the evening on February 4th, and will remain open until February 12th. While the selection window is open, you may change courses as often as you like. IMPORTANT; the last selection made are the courses that will be saved.The Advisors will be reviewing their Advisees’ schedules on the 10th and the 11th, as a check to make sure their schedules are entered. The course selection process does not “guarantee” a schedule, rather informs how many sections of a course we will need to schedule and how we will assign teachers to those sections.
We have considered the feedback we’ve received from students and parents regarding the minimum course/credit selection requirement in the senior year and have made the following changes. The important adjustment in the course request process for the Class of 2017 is the elimination of the required selection of a 6 credit minimum. Seniors must select enough credits to be a full time student (minimum of 4 credits; athletes see #2 below). We concluded that reducing the number of courses/credits required in this process will better help us to meet student course requests.
HOWEVER: WE STRONGLY ENCOURAGE EVERY STUDENT GOING INTO THEIR SENIOR YEAR TO CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:
- If you are considering applying to college, keep in mind that the expectation is for applicants to go above and beyond high school diploma requirements. You may have only one credit to earn in your senior year, but colleges want to see more. Don’t think of this as your last year of high school, but as the only year before college. If you can, continue to take courses in all disciplines. Show the colleges that you have the aptitude and continue the practice for yourself. Visit the admissions websites of the colleges you’re considering to be certain you’ve taken all the courses they would like you to.
- The NHIAA requires that all high school athletes must be enrolled in a total of five credits and passing four to participate in athletics. Be sure that you have enough credits to continue participation in your sport(s).
*Students hoping to participate in athletics in college should refer to the NCAA Eligibility website (www.eligibilitycenter.org) to be sure that he or she has taken all of the courses that are necessary to be an eligible recruit at Division I and Division II colleges. Some BHS courses are not approved by this organization. Consider the courses you’ve taken/plan to take when looking at the list of courses that are not approved by NCAA.
FOR ALL STUDENTS:
Counselors will see students in June. During the four days of Competency Recovery Week, students will be able to visit the Counseling Office to add or remove electives (8th grade students and their parents may contact the BHS School Counselors via email). There will be no record of an elective course dropped at this time. If a student chooses to drop a course outside of this timeframe, he or she will have the appropriate “Withdrawal” recorded on the transcript.
Any schedule changes that need to be made after Summer School grades come out in August will not be reflected on the transcript.
I have included the details of the scheduling process below for reference.
BHS Scheduling Procedures 2016-17
Schedules are final except in the following cases:
Reasons for a schedule adjustment:
- Graduation requirements are missing
- Prerequisite requirements have not been met for scheduled courses
- Duplication of courses
- Level change is warranted since course request time
Adding a Course:
- A student may add a course if they have an open block created by late arrival, early release, managed time, or level change, and there is an open seat in the course desired.
- A withdrawal from a course does not create an open opportunity in that student’s schedule.
- There will be an “Adding Day” the 3rd day of both semesters for any student with a free block to have the option of adding a semester-long course in its place. This opportunity is based on course availability.
Withdrawing from a Course:
- Once the class has begun, the student will receive the appropriate designation of “WP”(withdrawn pass) or “WF” (withdrawn fail) on their permanent transcript. Withdrawals are permitted in year-long classes until the end of quarter three and until the quarter break in semester classes.
- In cases when the course has not yet begun, the student will receive a record of “WP” on the transcript.
- All withdrawal forms will require parent/guardian and department Dean signatures since the result will be recorded on the student’s transcript.
Fall “Level Change Period”
- This period is the first 4 weeks at the start of school and will be for course level changes only. Given that there are no leveled semester courses, no Level Change Period is necessary in semester two.
- Level changes are defined only as changes between PSP, Honors, AP/IB, or full year science to 2 semester sciences.
- Level changes will be based on seat availability.
- The previous level course withdrawal will not be recorded on the transcript.
- Electives that must be dropped in order to change levels will not be reflected on the transcript.