Summer’s opportunities

Students use the summer to earn credits at Howell and with Grandview

Millennia Simmons, Staff Reporter

One way that is becoming popular to clear one one’s’ schedule is through summer school. Students in the Francis Howell school district have the option to partake in either online courses or travel to Howell to do so in district courses.
Some online courses are provided through Grandview High School. Grandview provides course from basic core classes to P.E, all free. Students can either make up or get ahead at least two credits to go towards graduation.

Counselor Trevor Wolfe provides some insight on the difference between the Grandview and Howell programs summer school programs.

“ [For] Grandview High School It’s a summer school program we’ve been using for the last couple of years. It gives our students an opportunity to take summer school classes outside of the Francis Howell district program, gives them a little more flexibility as opposed to them having to show up for classes at Howell. It’s exclusively online starting date sometime in the beginning of May end time in July) so all classes need to be completed in that window. And all that info is included in the [forms] we provide students. It doesn’t cost a student any money, but the student is only able to receive summer school credits either from the Francis Howell program or from Grandview you cannot get a half credit from both schools and you can only earn one credit,” Mr. Wolfe said.

He also believes that taking these online courses is a great opportunity to take part in opposed to back in the day when summer school was just used to make up credits.

“Taking summer school classes when I grew up and for a good amount of students today is for credit recovery. I’d say in the last 5-7 years students are now taking summer school for credit and advancement. For a lot of our students, it opens holes in their schedules to apply themselves and take some more challenging classes which prepare them for ACT and for college,” Mr. Wolfe said.

Majority of students however, have signed up for classes through Howell. For classes like Personal Finance, students come in the first and last day of summer school in order to register and take their final. In between, they have the option to come in for additional assistance.

So what are some benefits of participating in summer school? Junior Kara Fihe believes it helps clear required cores for some space for leisure or electives.  

“I think a benefit is that your can get ahead in school and It will open up time, like you can have a study hall instead of an extra class,” Fihe said.

Junior Gabriel Prather agrees with Fihe, he is taking as much as he can over the summer to clear up his schedule and graduate early.

“I’m doing it ahead so I can graduate early,” Prather said. “For me online classes (I usually have a busy schedule over the summer) so I can do it when I can, so I just knock it out as fast or as slow as I want to and summer school really helps me get ahead so I don’t have to take those classes over the year so I can take I can take the classes that I want to.”

Junior Elizabeth Skelly takes this opportunity to her advantage and believes though summer school can be time consuming, does not get in the way or her summer school activities.

“I think it’s a better way if you wanna fit more into your schedule so now I’m able to have a T.A hour or some sort of free class and then I don’t have to worry about it for my senior year,” Skelly said, “It takes up time in the summer, like I’m in a summer swim league so it’ll take up some time but honestly I don’t think it will be that much of an issue.”