Not so blended- Students Schedules Changed Without Warning

Not+so+blended-+Students+Schedules+Changed+Without+Warning

Gabrielle Houde, staff writer

Within the past few years, Joliet Township has been offering students an opportunity to participate in blended level courses. Students quickly showed a lot of interest in this new learning opportunity. From students point of view, a blended learning environment provides an opportunity to see what college is like. Up until this year, the process seemed to be running smoothly. However, the English department has experienced some complications with the blended course. This effects English 2 and 3 AP. It has been discovered that staffing issues have complicated the process, as not enough staff members are trained to teach a blended course with all the growing interest. Students enrolled in AP English 3 Blended were surprised to discover that the class would not run as a blended course.

Many students are angry and confused because they signed up for blended and were not told it wouldn’t be blended until the first day of school. Student Jaxon Rees feels that “It is very misleading. We all signed up for blended and now our schedules are being affected.”

This change affects some students’ entire schedules. Louisa Schwab stated, “I took overload because I thought this class would be blended. I figured that if I had study hall a couple days a week, I would be able to handle the big load.” Schwab isn’t the only student that did this. Many students dropped their overload after finding out that the class wasn’t blended. Rees, however, kept his overload so that his schedule would not have to be changed, and now has to deal with the intense workload.

According to assistant principal, Mr. Narducci, due to scheduling issues, teachers and students were switched around. This is due to a teacher not having the blended training and herefore not run a blended class.”

Due to another recent staffing adjustment, two other sections of English 2 will now no longer be blended either. According an English 2 student, A’Jaylah Toran, “On some days that I have games and practices, I would have been able to leave during 8th period to get food beforehand. Now that it is not blended, I won’t have time to eat.”

With the continued interest in blended courses, students are curious as to why not enough staff members are receiving the proper training to run a blended course. Although the situation is concerning, there are students who don’t mind the change. According to Allie Malleris, “The class suddenly not being blended didn’t bother me as much because I forgot it was blended in the first place. The class being blended would be nice, but it’s not a big deal.”

At the time of publication, there was no comment from administration about what will be done to address the concern.