Every year, rising juniors and seniors must decide whether or not they’re ready to sign up for AP classes. Because of recent drop/add policies, these students must also face the dreaded task of signing away their right to drop a class when they enroll in AP and Honors level courses. This agreement between student and administrator forces kids to commit to their classes and their schoolwork; however, it is the opinion of The Omniscient staff that this agreement can do more harm than good, and the process should be changed.
Most students who sign up for these higher level classes understand the purpose of the agreement and that they will not be able to drop these classes once enrolled. It is meant to keep class sizes manageable and prevent students from creating a logistical nightmare by dropping classes simply because they do not feel like doing the summer work. The current system undoubtedly accomplishes these goals to a certain degree, and while it is good to teach teenagers the importance of keeping a commitment, a lot of students end up in way over their head when they actually enter a course, potentially tanking their GPA and harming their chances of getting into college. The fact is, some kids are just not cut out for AP level classes for one reason or another. Yet they end up in these classes anyway, whether it be due to parental pressure, undue teacher recommendation or their own hardheadedness. Because of this, The Omniscient staff believes that this signed agreement should be replaced by an optional pre-test policy.
Each AP teacher should curate a simple pretest of their course to offer to potential students before the enrollment process. This test would show students what the basics of a course are and also what their own potential in the class would be. This would help students make a more informed decision on what classes they have the ability to succeed in. According to our proposed policy, the test would be optional when choosing to take a class, but would be required if the student wants the ability to drop a class once enrolled. This way, if students choose to utilize the resources available to them, they will likely benefit from the decision. If incapable students choose not to take the test and enroll in the class anyway, they won’t have the opportunity to drop the class.
This would prevent students from dropping classes for trivial reasons. Even so, if an eligible student wished to drop a class, their reason would still need to be reviewed by their counselor. Furthermore, it would teach students the valuable lesson that if they go the extra mile to use the resources provided to them, they will be rewarded. We believe that implementing this system would be beneficial to both students and teachers and help more students succeed in their future endeavors.
