EHS preparing to enroll students
Nancy Horst
Friday, January 18, 2008
Emporia High School is gearing up for 2008-2009 enrollment and students will start selecting their classes later this month.
EHS counselors will meet Wednesday with eighth graders at Emporia Middle School to hand out enrollment information and explain the process for selecting classes. Counselors will return to EMS a week later to answer questions and to collect the enrollment materials, according to Teresa Maley, head of the EHS Guidance Department.
Students are encouraged to take the information home and work with their parents to select courses that will help them achieve their educational goals.
Next year’s seniors will be the first class to graduate under new Kansas graduation requirements, Maley said, and all EHS students finally will come under the same set of requirements.
Starting in 2009, all high school graduates must have three credits of both math and science rather than two credits of each. Graduates also must have one credit of fine arts. EHS already requires two credits of fine or practical arts; under the new requirements at least one of the two credits must be a fine art, she said.
Current EHS students also will receive enrollment packets starting next week and enrollment starts on Jan. 31, Maley said.
“Starting January 31, we’ll bring all the juniors into the library and they will enroll themselves on PowerSchool. This is the first time for that,” she said. “It is our hope, in a few years, we’ll give the information to the students and they can go home, log onto PowerSchool, and enroll from home with their parents. That’s our dream.”
When students receive their enrollment bulletins, they will notice a few new courses and some new names for existing classes. EHS is adding upper level Spanish for native speakers and combining junior composition and junior communication. The new Junior English/Communication class should benefit students in preparation for their Kansas Reading Assessment, Maley said. Cell Biology/Genetics will become two separate semester classes to expand the curriculum, a change made in anticipation of expected growth in health care professions.
“We’re trying to keep up with the times and give our students additional information,” she said.
Pre-enrollment should be complete by mid-February and administrators will begin working on the 2008-2009 schedule. Individual student schedules will be available online through PowerSchool in late July.
Parents who want more information about the enrollment process can call or e-mail Maley at 341-2365 or tmaley@usd253.org.