Class registration is now open on StudentVue until March 25 for freshmen, sophomores and juniors. A variety of new electives are available this year, including Introduction to Law and the Justice System, Theater Sound Design and Intro to Interpreting & Translation. In addition to the core classes already offered, students can take AP or IB classes, which are open to all interested students, grade level-permitting. These courses are more rigorous and can be beneficial for college-bound students. Inglemoor High School is one of only 18 schools in the state that offers the IB program, beginning in 1997.
“The biggest advantage that we see with our IB graduates is that they feel that they are very prepared for college and university, oftentimes more prepared than other people,” said IB Coordinator Christopher McQueen. “The whole curriculum is an international curriculum. It’s infused with that. It’s holistic; it all ties together,” said IB coordinator Amy Monaghan. “So when we’re talking about history, we’re also talking about learning about history or ‘what does truth look like in history versus what does truth look like in the sciences.’ There’s also an independent nature to it. There’s some student voice and student choice with their internal assessment topics and their extended essay.”
There are also Career and College Readiness courses, which teach skills students need throughout their careers. These courses can be taken through the WANIC/Satellite programs, which offer courses such as Aviation, Culinary Arts and Baking and Pastry, along with Beginning Automotive Technology, Dental Careers and Fire &
EMS.
“WANIC is for those who want more of a hands-on learning experience than justsitting in the classroom, listening to it, and doing assignments,” said College and Career Counselor Jim Allen. “A lot of these programs give you experience that can lead to jobs right after high school.”
For example, the Introduction to Flight class, offered at North Creek, directly prepares students for FAA private pilot written exams, and the Health Science Careers classes at Woodinville include CPR, first aid and medical assistant certifications. NSD also offers a program called Running Start, which allows students to take college courses at the local community colleges while still in high school. These courses can save students money down the road, allow for more flexibility in schedules, and offer a wider variety of courses.
In particular, Running Start students can complete up to two years of college early, which means they could save 2 years of time and tuition for a 4-year degree or earn a 2-year associate’s degree at the same time as graduating high school.
“For some students, Running Start is a real benefit, like ‘I’m done with high school, I don’t want to be here, you know
that; let me out’,” Allen said.
All of the coordinators in the counseling office agree that communicating with students and making sure students are getting the correct information has been especially difficult in the last few years as COVID forced everyone online.
“We get to interact with the kids in person again,” Registrar Melissa Holladay said. “Last year, we were all online; there was no conversation. If a kid didn’t turn anything in, I couldn’t get to them. If they wouldn’t answer an email, if they wouldn’t answer a phone call, we just had to build them a schedule. We have the ability to call kids back down again.”
Holladay said that she and her colleagues want to encourage kids to select alternative courses as it will at least allow them to have a course they want in case their primary selection isn’t available.
“I think it’d be important to tell kids to be thoughtful about their selection because we are a semester schedule that’s built on student course requests, and so what kids request is how we staff our building,” said Holladay. “Kids don’t always realize that, so they’ll all sign up for one thing, and then they all change their mind, but we hired a teacher to teach the class they initially signed up for. So that’s why, when they come in for schedule changes, it’s difficult to accommodate because of the way we build the schedule. We don’t build it and then force them into it; we build it based on what they asked for.”
More information about classes and course registration is available on the In-
glemoor school website.
