As the 2024-2025 academic session began, Irvington students soon grew frantic over their schedules and submitted forms in order to change into their desired classes. Given the high number of requests, schedule changes were a deeply complex process.

There were two forms to request a change: the Emergency Correction Request Form used to quickly correct any holes in schedules, missing required classes, and/or duplicated class and the Open Elective Schedule Change Request Form which allowed students to change electives based on availability, and drop/add courses. Administration tried their best to accommodate changes but, sometimes, things took a turn for the worse.

Changes required adjustments to be made with the student requesting the change as well as their classmates. Occasionally, students who did not request a change as they were satisfied with their schedule woke up to find that they were placed in different periods for their courses. “It’s kind of a weird transition and I’m still struggling with keeping up with all the homework that I missed in the future,” explained Alison Su (10). “I kept accidentally walking to my first period wrong every time and then I showed up as absent on one of my days because I didn’t know about my schedule change.”

On the other hand, students who received a schedule change they requested seemed content. “I felt like the double accelerated class was way too fast-paced and I knew that I wasn’t going to perform that well in the class so I decided to drop down,” explained Lisa Sun (10). Many other students also changed to their desired schedules.

Irvington’s administration, met with hundreds of schedule change requests, faced issues regarding attendance and enrollment which further complicated the changes. Mr. Hicks explained that the district’s annual projection for Irvington’s enrollment happened to be inaccurate this year.