With the fall semester ending, scheduling for the 2024-2025 school year has begun. Guidance has made their way through each history classroom and shared what students needed to know about their plans for next year. They also assisted students in properly choosing classes they need to graduate.
Next year, most electives are continuing the same as they did this year and years prior, such as the social studies, and business, electives, according to guidance counselor Mr. Bob Winter.
Harford County Public Schools is making a significant change in the progression of the history curriculum. U.S. History will be taken by every grade next year, excluding seniors. Winter explains that this is because
“ eighth grade students] take U.S. History up to a certain point in eighth grade, and then they [can] pick up on it again in ninth grade.“ This will make the transition more “fluid,” from middle school to high school history.
However, this change is affecting every social studies class next year, except for electives. Winter explains that “The kids who are in eleventh grade are done social studies for next year. The kids who are now in tenth grade, they’ll need to take U.S. History to finish up their social studies credits. The kids that are currently in ninth grade, they’re going to be taking U.S. History.” So, U.S. History is being taken by every student who needs that credit next year.
For upcoming seniors, they can take HCC courses to collect both high school credits and college credits. This idea is called dual enrollment. To do so, however, there are requirements to acquire the free enrollment.
“One of the big ones is the attendance,” says Winter. “The goal is 90% attendance.” He shares that junior students need to watch their attendance. If they fall out of that attendance rate, they won’t be qualified.
Another requirement is a student’s overall GPA. The guidance department is currently “in limbo right now, as to what that GPA is going to be. Last year it was a 2.0. This year, we’re anticipating that it’s going to be raised.” Winter finishes that during junior year, students should “keep [their] GPA up, and keep [their] attendance up to ensure [that they] get that free tuition.”
Finally, the guidance counselor advises that, “if you want to make changes [the guidance department] would prefer them before the end of this school year.” He commented that “over the summer, we’re making schedules and teachers’ schedules. So when [students] want to come and do it in the beginning of the year, it makes it tough because if you let one student do it, then they all want to do it. Then the class that everyone signed up for, all of the sudden there’re no kids for it.”
