The following was emailed to CHS families by Principal Elizabeth Aaron on August 24:
August 24, 2016
Dear CHS Families:
We hope these last few weeks of summer find you well. Please read this letter carefully as it contains important information about schedules for the school year.
Powerschool is now open for CHS. Please log into Powerschool to view your student’s schedule for the ‘16-‘17 school year. Should you need help with your Powerschool account, please email Mrs. Voorhees at rvoorhee@somsd.k12.nj.us. For security reasons, she cannot activate accounts over the phone.
New CHS families: We mailed you a letter on Tuesday, August 23 with your access code for Powerschool.
All other students/families who are current CHS students, including our incoming 9th graders, should use their Powerschool log-in.
Our scheduling process started in winter 2016 and included the following steps:
- students attended grade-level assemblies with members of our counseling department to review how to access and use our Course Offerings book to make course decisions
- students attended small group meetings with counselors to review the course selection process
- students and families had the opportunity to attend evening and/or Saturday AP information sessions
- students had the opportunity to visit AP classes and some elective courses
- students and families had the opportunity to talk with supervisors and ’15-16 AP teachers about courses
- students had the opportunity to follow up with counselors and teachers to talk about course selections and make choices where scheduling conflicts occurred
- students had the opportunity to take summer credit recovery courses, complete online or summer school work, or academy programs to prepare to move course levels
The CHS Guidance and Counseling office will be open this Friday and Monday, 8/26 and 8/29, from 8:30-11:30 a.m. to collect schedule change request forms and answer general questions. Please be aware that changes will not be made to schedules at that time. Students and families can come at that time to fill out a form (also attached) and have questions answered. All necessary information, including a parent/guardian signature, is required to process a change form.
Please be aware that not all schedule change requests can be accommodated. Factors such as class size, budgeting, staffing, facilities, safety regulations and classroom capacity impact scheduling.
Students should check back into Power School prior to the start of school to determine the status of any requested changes. We will be working on changes during the week of August 29th so that all students begin the school year with their finalized schedules.
Requests for schedule changes should be made if:
- a core content course is missing from a schedule
- a duplicate course is present in the schedule (a course that the student has already taken and passed)
- required elective coursework for graduation in the state of NJ is missing from a schedule
- the student has been assigned to an academic level other than was selected in spring 2016
We cannot accommodate schedule request changes that are:
- requests for a specific teacher
- requests for a specific class period
- requests for different electives
- requests for level changes (level changes were addressed during the spring scheduling/planning process)
We look forward to assisting you with any questions you have about your schedules on August 26 or August 29, and look forward to a great start the school year on September 6 (for 9th graders) and September 7 (for all other students).
Best regards,
SCHEDULECHANGEREQUESTFORM2016_2017.pdf
Elizabeth M. Aaron, MAT, M. Ed.
Principal
Columbia High School
17 Parker Avenue, Maplewood, NJ 07040
973-762-5600 ext 1014
eaaron@somsd.k12.nj.us
Twitter: @CougarPrincipal
