
Course selection is a process every freshman, sophomore, and junior Huntley High School student has to go through. Picking classes for the next school year can be exciting for some, boring for most, and anxiety-ridden for others.
“I think it’s a little too early, because at the start of this semester I’m too focused on it to think about what’s next,” sophomore Ezra Gruendemann said.
It’s a lengthy process with many steps going into it. Counselors start meeting with students as early as October to discuss ideas of future classes.
The counselors give guidance and suggestions with graduation requirements in mind, as well as aiding students into careers.
“I never want anybody to be in a position down the line where they can’t do something, they can’t be a certain person, work in a certain field, because they didn’t take the necessary steps beforehand,” counselor James Messina said.
Making sure the correct classes are taken the right years is important, an example being the fact that only underclassmen can take Project Lead The Way to advance the engineering route. That decision has to be made early in one’s high school career, whether liken or not.
In early January, students are placed in the Performing Arts Center during their English class over three days with English teachers and counselors to put their classes into PowerSchool.
“The teachers are there to just kind of help students out when they’re raising their hand and have questions,” English teacher Michelle Mangan said. “If it’s pertaining to English, we can kind of help them navigate. And we’ve been here long enough that we can kind of help with some of the smaller issues.”
For counselors, after this, they move on to going to Heineman and Marlowe for the next three days to meet with all of the middle schoolers. Then, the process of filtering through what students selected begins, among receiving level change and blended requests. Staffing changes are also done as things move around due to things like pregnancies and retirements.
“We have so many really great programs here, and I think that to make the best of it, you need to be thinking about what you’re interested in,” Mangan said.
It’s understood that planning can be undesirable, especially when it feels like only the here and now matters. However, students’ best interest is always kept in mind when it comes to this process.
“Our job is for everybody to graduate and to move on to bigger and better things. I want you to be proactive instead of reactive,” Messina said.