In preparation for the 2024-2025 school year, students were encouraged to start course selection in early January. Counselors have also been in the 1600 hallway for both the 5th and 6th periods to allow for easier accessibility to speedy question-and-answer sessions.
A critical part of course registration is teacher recommendation. Teachers are in charge of recommending their students for classes they feel they are prepared for, and counselors are highly encouraging students to stick to their recommended classes. In past years, there have been multiple issues with dropping classes well into the school year, which is an action the administration wants to prevent.
“We are continuing the practice of asking students to consider their overall load when choosing courses,” counselor Chelsey Bucherati explained. “We won’t be able to make any schedule changes for students who wish to change their mind or who waived against their teacher’s recommendation.”
Registration has not always been this early, but to accommodate for the large number of students at Lambert in addition to the number of courses that are offered to students both online and in person, registration is necessary at this time. Another reason for early registration is the hiring process. Once the admin knows how many classes students want to register for, which classes are in high demand, and which classes Lambert does not have enough teachers for, then teachers are hired on that basis.
“It’s a long process, but knowing about course requests now means we can begin to build the Master Schedule for the entire school and organize schedules of over 3,00 kids,” Bucherati explained. “It’s a lot of work that takes a lot of time.”
To optimize the amount of time teachers can instruct, Admin is eliminating the periods where teachers are administrating virtual classes. This is due to the need for more teachers to lower the number of students in each class. To execute this, students are responsible for finding their own transportation to and from school when any virtual class appears in their schedule. When discussing commonly asked questions about virtual and dual classes, Bucherati said this.
“The counseling website is updated regularly with information about both of these [dual enrollment and virtual classes], and we encourage students to read all the information we have curated there for you!” Bucherati explained.
Stepping into the new school year, it is crucial that students have all the important information needed with registration to ensure a smooth transition to the next grade level.
