The Scheduling Process

It has occured to me (through many of your questions) that most students don't really know or understand how the schedule is ultimately created. I thought it might be helpful if I give you a quick overview of the scheduling process. (I am saying quick because it is actually boring and is known to cause massive headaches for those trying to put it all together and make it work for every student.)

After all of you entered your registration requests in the computer system, I started the process of meeting with you and reviewing your course selections. I would like to thank all of the students who came to the meetings prepared with your completed forms. I also want to thank all of the juniors and junior parents who made the time to come in and meet with me. I really enjoyed it and have been thrilled with all the "repeat" visits from the junior students since our meetings. All of the course requests are now finalized and were officially given to the administration as the "final" registration requests.

The administration (principal and assistant principals) will look at the numbers for all of the courses selected to determine what, if any, courses do not have enough students signed up to be able to offer the class. After they figure this out they will provide that information back to the counselors with a list of students impacted and we will then work with those students and their alternates list to find a suitable replacement course.

The administrators will also begin working to determine the total number of sections of each class (for example English 1's) needed to meet the demand. They will then work with computer services to create a schedule that will create the smallest number of conflicts possible. This is a MUCH bigger challenge than most people would imagine. For example, if a class like AP Computer Science is only offered 1 time in the day, then they have to figure out what students want to take that class and try to make sure that the time of day selected to offer the course will not conflict with any other classes - especially any other classes that are only offered once in a day (like Band, Choir, or AP Foreign Languages).

Eventually they will create a schedule and "lock" it in place. When that happens they will then come back to the counselors with a list of all of the kids with conflicts in their schedules. In some cases, we are able to make minor adjustments - move a few classes around and make the schedule work. In other instances, we will have to work with the student to make tough decisions about what classes they do or do not want to take and use the alternates to find other courses that would work and still meet requirements toward graduation.

And that's it - we will ultimately get the schedule set just how we want it and hopefully all of you will pass all of your classes 2nd semester so that we don't have to go back and add anything into your schedule or change classes that you no longer meet the pre-requisites for, but all of those types of changes will happen after the final grades are submitted in June.

I hope that helps you to understand what is going on with the scheduling and registration process. It is a long and tedious process and I appreciate your patience.

Good Luck at States!

Today the Mock Trial Team will participate in the State Tournament competition. 4 of my students are among the team members including Hannah Vincent, Manda Cash, Karam Dhillon, and Michelle Ding. You have been working so hard to memorize and focus on perfecting even the smallest details for your competition. All of your hard work will be worth it and so I wish you all the best of luck as you demonstrate the commitment and dedication that you have been putting in this year! Good luck!

Academic Honors Night

Congratulations to all of the students who were honored at tonight's Academic Honors ceremony. As a component of the award ceremony, students are presented with gold, silver, and bronze keys in recognition of their achievements in academic excellence.

Gold keys are awarded to students who have earned a cumulative GPA of a 3.5 or higher at the end of 7 full semesters. 27 of "my" students were among tonight's gold key recipients.

Silver keys are awarded to students with at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA at the end of 5 full semesters. 17 of "my" students received silver keys tonight.

Bronze Keys are awarded to students with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher at the end of 3 full semesters. 23 of "my" students were presented with bronze keys.

Congratulations to each of you for your academic commitments and achievements!

ACT Registration Deadline

Juniors, as we talked about during your 1:1 meetings, this spring is your ideal time to take the ACT and/or the SAT college admissions tests. The deadline to register for the April 14th test date for the ACT (without having to incur late fees) is this Friday, March 9th.

Also, don't forget, if you were interested in participating in the ZAPS ACT Prep Course, you need to register online at http://www.zaps.com/. I have had several parents mention that the ZAPS ACT Prep class is listed online as being 2 days long instead of being 3 days long and that is because ZAPS worked with us to specifically design a 3-day course that would work during the OGT late start mornings and since this is not a normal set-up for them, their website isn't capable of showing it as a 3-day class. So, when you sign up for the class, there is a note that mentions it is for all 3 days, but it will only confirm you as taking a 2-day class. Don't worry, it is still the right class.

Local Scholarships

All of the parents of seniors should have received an e-mail today highlighting the local scholarship opportunities. If you didn't get the e-mail, please go to the Kilbourne Counselor website at www.wkhscounselors.com and scroll down to click on the link for local scholarships. These scholarships provide a great opportunity for students to earn some additional financial help for college. And, with the scholarships being local, it means that there would be less people applying for the scholarships (compared to national scholarships) which gives you a better chance of receiving one of the scholarships.

Please take the time to carefully read through the criteria for the scholarships to see which ones would be appropriate for you to apply for and then start working. When you go to the WKHS Counselors website and click on the local scholarships area (bottom of the home page) you will be taken to the listing of all of the scholarships and it has the links to each scholarship application.

Most of the deadlines for completed applications is the end of the school day on April 12th and no late applications can be accepted. I cannot stress enough the importance of planning ahead and starting to work on these scholarships now!

Also, please pay attention to see if the applications require a written recommendation letter and ask your teacher(s) for a letter as soon as possible - especially if they have not already written a rec letter that they can use for the scholarships.

Also, don't forget that a complete list of all the other scholarships that we are aware of are featured on the Kilbourne Counselor website in the scholarship area (at the top).

Summer School

Information about summer school was distributed along with the rest of your registration materials. I know that a lot of students have indicated that they intend to take a class in summer school, but as we met to review your courses, many students were uncertain if they had actually signed up yet. I wanted to remind you that it is important to make sure you sign up for soon if you are planning on taking summer school classes. There are limited courses available in summer school and, in particular, each year the classes such as Phys Ed and Speech fill up quickly and kids frequently get closed out.

If you failed a class during the 1st semester, you need to discuss signing up for summer school with your parents. The success rates for students who take summer school is very strong because you are only asked to focus on one subject at a time and it is a more relaxed environment.

This year summer school will be held at Thomas Worthington High School and most courses cost around $200. (Students on the free and reduced lunch program are allowed to attend for $50.)

If you have lost your summer school registration brochure, please stop in the Counseling Center and ask one of the secretaries for a new brochure.

Take a Picture

We made it through another week! Granted, it was a four-day week, but from all of the students that I talked to today, it felt like a much longer week than that. I hope that you have fun adventures planned for your three-day weekend.

For some students, this weekend serves as the perfect opportunity to get a jump start on making college visits to get an idea of what different schools have to offer. For other students, it is time to start narrowing down to help determine which school you will be attending next year and so this may be a second or even third visit to campus. Either way, I would like to remind you that we would really like you to take a picture somewhere on campus to share with us!

Enjoy your long weekend!