With course cards soon due for the upcoming school year at MSD, electives are heavily discussed as there are a wide range of options for students to select; however, only three classes can be selected as electives, excluding the three alternates. This, in turn, raises the question whether three elective classes really are enough for high school students.

As students start preparing themselves for postsecondary life, the classes they choose to take part in allow them to gain more knowledge and skills. Electives at MSD are not only seen as fun courses that balance a schedule, but they also offer immersive, hands-on experiences for various career pathways.

MSD offers electives in all categories from science to language arts, and even electives in future careers such as hospitality, business, culinary, JROTC, journalism and foreign languages.

With such varying and interesting courses to take, students struggle to pick only three electives. It seems like no matter what they choose, students will be skipping out on another course they wish to take. Electives can also help determine what students are interested in after high school.

Also, to graduate at MSD certain elective requirements must be met, like one year of physical education or a fine art credit. And with limited electives students have, it creates increasing challenges in meeting graduation elective requirements as well as taking electives students are interested in.

To allow students more opportunities to discover their interests throughout their high school career, MSD should increase the number of electives from three to five.

An increase in the number of electives will also require a change of class distribution and scheduling. Five electives instead of three electives will create a total of ten class periods, accounting for four core classes and one personalization period. Currently, MSD has eight classes, four per day with A/B block scheduling.

If we were to have five electives, five classes would be distributed per silver and burgundy day as opposed to four a day. To keep school hours the same, from 7:40 a.m to 2:40 p.m., class time would most likely need to be reduced to roughly 70 minutes, to account for a gained class period daily.

However, the benefits of added electives outweigh the negatives of remodeling class schedules. With added electives, students have more flexibility and choice in taking classes they are interested in that will further their education.

Electives that are particular to a student’s field of interest, make classes useful for the future and allow them to apply what they learned from their high school classroom into their future jobs.

Added electives won’t interfere with other courses such as Dual Enrollment and Advanced Placement, as MSD students are allowed to take any core class as an added elective as long as they meet any prerequisites.

Remodeling scheduling for the entire school, although not easy, will allow students to grow further than their core classes, bettering them for college and allowing them to take classes they like.