As the new semester begins, many students change their schedules and some drop their AP classes. This leads to classes being underfilled which ultimately leads to classes being split apart and collapsed into other periods.

One of the students that were affected by this sudden change of schedule was Andres Poblete (11). 

“I was just in my class until Principle Hatcher walked in. I was really confused when he announced that my class was going to collapse,” said Andres.

Principal Hatcher goes on to explain that due to the new semester starting, students now have the option to grade down for the new semester. Because the students now understand the difficulty of the course, they can evaluate their performance from the last semester. Some don’t feel like they meet the requirement or think it is too hard, so they drop out. 

“It makes me really sad to leave that class because I have already befriended a couple of my classmates and I was comfortable in my class. Not only that, this impacted my other periods as well which caused some of my classes to change as well.”

Many students are already familiarized with their classes already, so switching classes might be mentally draining for the students as they have to adjust to a new environment. This can impact their studies too, as different teachers have different standards and strategies when it comes to teaching. Furthermore, it is not just one of their classes that is being affected but sometimes their whole schedule. Moving around classes causes some to reshuffle which would cause even more distress in students. However, it is understandable why they are collapsing classes. 

Many teachers that were interviewed stated that “it would be unfair to other students as there would be a group of students that would get more help from studying as the group of kids that teachers have to teach is smaller.” 

Standardized classrooms normally have around 30 students. The classes that collapsed had around 20 or even down to 15. This causes a huge gap in the capacity of a classroom. 

Mrs. Smith, the mother of two sophomores whose names shall be kept private, shared that “as long as students would not be affected greatly or that they are uncomfortable with the idea of their classes being collapsed, it is fine to do so.”

When it comes to school, education is of the utmost importance. Parents would be concerned if their kids receive bad grades due to the sudden change of environment, but as long as no one is severely affected, most people are fine with their classes being collapsed.