On Thursday, March 3, 2022, Maggie Walker’s 2022-2023 course registration process began during 2nd period. Students were asked to bring a form given out by the counseling offices earlier in February, one which contained teacher signatures recommending advancement into higher level classes. Parent and student signatures were also required to proceed on to the next steps of class enrollment If these requirements were not met in the first round, students participated in the make-up registration on the following Tuesday, March 8.

When asked about course registration in the past, Mr. Karl Zweerink, the freshman class counselor, reminisced on the former arena scheduling, in which students had to rush to take tickets from booths of the classes and blocks they wanted. Unlike today, where seniors get first privilege for counselors to build a master schedule, it used to be a first-come-first-served system where students had greater autonomy to pick classes in certain slots. If tickets ran out, students simply could not register for that course. Says Zweerink, “It was rather stressful for students, because sometimes they’d have everything all worked out until that last ticket!”

On the topic of schedule problems, Zweerink stated, “We start with the rising seniors first, and we fix schedules, [but] sometimes students don’t get what they request.” In some cases, “to fix a rising senior’s schedule, we have to take a course out of a rising junior or sophomore’s schedule.” The issues pass through each grade level, with freshmen having the last priority. “The goal every year is to have everybody’s schedule fixed by the beginning of June. We’re hoping we’ll print out schedules, without teacher names, but with classes in period order so that students can see before they go home for the summer that they did actually get into the classes that they wanted to get into.” Zweerink mentioned that it is preferable for students to notify counselors of a course change request before the end of April, because the schedule has not been finalized in the system yet. In the future, Zweerink noted that there could be some changes to the course registration process in the future, but PowerSchool will likely continue to be Maggie Walker’s course program.

Ms. Joy Cobb, the sophomore and junior grade counselor, elaborated on how the information of students’ top choices is run, and the schedule building begins around spring break time. Since last year’s course registration was virtual, the issues that arose for many sophomores this year were “walking through the form, reminding students that for AP, plus, [and] dual enrollment classes, they needed the signatures, and explaining the process since we didn’t do that last year.” There were some notable differences between virtual and on-paper registration. Ms. Cobb stated that students used to come to computer labs to register, but “teachers liked having more flexibility as to when in class students did it.” For Cobb, she prefers having a paper version “to compare and make sure a student entered the same thing, in case they mis-entered something.” When asked about any future changes to course registration, she agreed with Zweerink that PowerSchool will likely remain the course program of choice.

Overall, Maggie Walker students had the opportunity to choose eight courses that fulfilled their grade-level requirements. Despite not running on the arena-scheduling system Maggie Walker practiced years ago, there is still much opportunity to build one’s schedule according to their preferences. For example, many have elected to take physical education online, thus opening up an extra class slot for an elective or perhaps even to fulfill a language requirement. All credit requirements are listed at the bottom of the course offerings sheet. To request course changes, students will have until June 17, 2022, or the end of the 2021-2022 academic year. Happy course registration!