The following article was published as a part of The Seminole’s 2014 April Fool’s issue! The information, quotations, and other content is completely fictitious and should not be considered a true representation of the school, the administration, or other governing entities.
Seminole’s administration recently met to discuss options for rescheduling IB students’ attendance in order to reduce the burden on IB teachers and to limit overcrowding at Seminole.
The proposals come on the heels of IB seniors’ success on exams after studying during their time off in May: last year’s IB class had the highest percentage ever of students receiving their IB diplomas after a successful testing season.
School administration is looking to extend this important study period to fill the junior and senior years of every IB student. Students would attend school for fewer days each week, with time off to study topics for their exams.
Under the new plan, students will learn all material at home and show up to school only for cumulative testing (such as nine-week exams) or review with their teachers.
Current proposals range from one to three days of attendance each week for IB upperclassmen.
If the one-day plan is chosen, students will have double-periods for testing in their IB classes and stay until 5:00 in the afternoon; all non-IB courses will be taken at home through FLVS. Under the two-day plan, students will be able to spread their block schedule for testing over two days, so they’ll be able to leave school at the same time as every other student.
Junior Blake Dotam, who’s not in IB, is excited about the change. “I was thinking about taking APES [AP Environmental Sciences] next year, but I was worried about all those annoying IB kids being in it with me. Now I don’t have to worry because they’ll all be in virtual school!”
Because IB is intended as rigorous preparation for a postsecondary education, the administration has also offered a three-day plan that is very similar to a college schedule. The three days of attendance will be the same as the two-day plan but will also include a weekly day to review the material with teachers.
Many students, such as IB freshman Michael Wilson, are worried about the impacts on their extracurricular activities. “I don’t know if my parents can drive me to and from school every Thursday just for my club meetings and extra lab time for my science classes,” he commented.
However, the administration has made new rules for clubs in order to assuage these concerns. Principal Connie Collins said of the new policies, “We’ll all need to work together to change. As the famous Indian nationalist Gandhi said, we all need to be the change we wish to see in the world. We’ve decided that all clubs with more than 50% IB students as members will have activity bussing for those students who can’t attend meetings, but if buses are unavailable, rescheduling the meetings will be required or the club will have to be disbanded in order to prevent the exclusion of any IB students.”
Proponents of the change argue that as many as 3000 student-hours of instruction per week can be saved with the new plan, allowing some IB teachers to regain their lost plan periods and for all teachers to be better allocated for Seminole’s growing and near-capacity population.
Administration will weigh all these factors and potential repercussions when picking the plan in these coming weeks. Students’ opinions, suggestions, and comments are welcome; the form is available below.