Students can now add or drop classes for the 2009-2010 school year fully online | by MADALYNE BIRD

The application to add or drop a class for the 2009 fall semester was online earlier this summer.  This new approach made it more accessible for students and their parents at home to change schedules.

The application itself remained the same: the student gave their name, parents’ name, grade and which class they wished to change.  Students still had to pay the mandatory $25 fee for changing classes.  Although the deadline passed on Aug. 7, Academic Scheduler Kathy Walters says it managed to save some students a trip to the school office.

‘Usually during the summer we have long waiting lines of students outside the scheduling office,’ Walters said.  ‘Having the online option made the process of changing schedules much faster and more efficient.’

Walters also said that the scheduling office received almost 50 online requests to add or drop classes.

‘Receiving applications online also made it easier for our office to spend more time making sure that students were given the best schedules available to them,’ Walters said.

Seniors Riley Cowing and Laura Havey both made the decision to drop classes this year using the online application.

‘Using the online form made everything easier, all I had to do was fill out the simple questions it asked, write a few comments on why I was dropping the class and click submit, the whole thing is done online,’ Cowing said.  ‘It was a lot faster than walking in to the administration offices and asking for a form.’

However, Havey disagrees with Cowing’s statements on the simplicity of the online forum.

‘I much rather would have gone in and spoken to an administrator about changing classes,’ Havey said.  ‘It would have been less complicated to explain to them why I made the decision to change classes.  I thought using the website was weird and confusing.  I wasn’t really clear on what I was supposed to do.  The concept was good, it was just difficult to understand.’

After the form is submitted online, the scheduling office receives it in a spreadsheet form, listing the students name and what they would like to change. The application is then compared to the student’s current schedule. 

Although this new online process will not be available to students for the 2010 spring semester, it will be on the school’s website next summer for the 2010-2011 school year.