Let There be a Corrective on Electives

LET THERE BE A CORRECTIVE ON ELECTIVES

Imagine the first week of school and the one class you hate. You don’t know why you picked this elective because you find it no fun. Suddenly you have an idea: “Can I switch electives?” You walk over to the counselor’s desk and they tell you that you can’ switch classes until January. According to Grace Chen’s article “Decreasing Public High School Elective Programs” in the Public School Review it says that some kids will not like their elective and that they should be able to switch.

High school is all about gaining independence from parents, so why do students have to have parent permission to switch electives? Students should be able to switch an elective and not have to involve parents. Not involving parents means that the earliest a student can switch electives is January, meaning it would take half a year to switch out of an elective.

According to, Timothy Kiesling’s article “How to switch your classes” in The Rogue News it says that you should spend some time in your class before you make the choice to switch.  So why can’t students switch sooner? Well believe it or not it is tricky to switch a student’s electives. It would be a difficult process having to do this for every high school student that wants to switch a class.

Students will have to go through many people in your school if you want to switch out there electives. In order to change electives, a parent must help go through the mandatory steps. However, some students parents will not help them to switch so some students will not have a chance to switch even if they want to. According to Ms. Frias she says, that it is a lot harder to switch a students elective.

Most students when picking their elective did not look up what their elective was about or what it was. “I just picked one that looked the best,” said Sophomore Logan Hughes.  If 57% of students want to switch or are not happy with your elective then why not let students switch? Students shouldn’t have to wait to change classes. Sophomore Martin Anderson says he loves his elective and would stay in there if he was offered to switch. Some students are happy but others are not, so should we make exceptions for the students that want to switch?

Imagine this: It is your first day and all of your classes are fun. Then, you walk to your elective which is supposed to be the most fun class you have. You walk in and you instantly regret it. What do you do? You finally convince your parents after hours of explaining valid reasons to switch and they say yes. The next day you go to your guidance counselor and they say you aren’t allowed to switch till January, meaning you will have to spend a lot more time in that class than you wanted to spend in the first place. However, you have a saving grace: your counselor says the one way to switch is if you get your parents involved and they call the school and ask them to switch your class. Knowing your parents, you know there is no way to switch that class.

If students have a class that they hate, chances are they won’t try as hard or be as involved in the class. So if one of the reasons that students can’t switch electives is because their grades will drop, it is highly possible that their grades will drop just as much from lack of interest in the class. With this being said, while the process of changing electives for students is difficult for counselors, students should have less restrictions keeping them from changing electives. If you are a student that wants to switch you will be allowed to after fall break according to Ms. Frias.