Chart Promotes Realistic Planning

In an effort to help students and their families plan for next year’s course schedule, administrators, counselors, and teachers have designed a time management chart that considers the various time requirements for academic courses, as well as other important lifestyle factors like family time and extra-curriculars.

The chart can be found in the online course request packet provided to freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. The chart explains the range of minutes and hours students can expect to spend on these activities in an effort to help them plan realistic and achievable goals, balanced schedules, and healthy expectations.

“We adopted it from a template created at Miramonte High School. I introduced it to our admin and department chairs and worked with them to reflect estimated homework times for each class,” said counselor Jenna Wrobel. “We also incorporated what we distribute and use with students in the counseling office to help plan their curriculum.”

In addition, the counselors and administration were inspired by a book published by Stanford educators from the Challenge Success program, titled Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids. “In this book there is a version of a time management tool that served as the basis for ours,” explained Principal John Walker.

The leadership class was in charge of finalizing the approval of the chart. Senior leadership student Fiona Stewart said, “They just asked our opinion. They showed us it and asked if we thought it was a good measure of all the times.”

Walker explained how the time management chart strives to provoke “students and their parent/guardians to take a look at the chart during the course selection period and any other time when their student is going to make a major time commitment, whether it’s joining a club, an athletic team, committing to community service, or getting a job.”

In late spring, a survey “about time management and planning” will go out to the students to “see if [the chart] helped, played a role,” said Walker.

Stewart said, “I think it will make the students realize how much time they have to put aside for other stuff outside of school and I think it will make them realize how much work some AP classes are so they’ll be more thoughtful in picking their classes for next year.”

Wrobel added, “Counselors and administration hoped that students would use this tool when choosing their classes. Ultimately, we all (the entire Campolindo community) hope that students will learn to balance their school lives with the ones they lead off campus. Self-care and learning to set and stick to limits, are both important life skills.”

Mrs. Wrobel hopes students “enjoy high school and reduce the amount of stress, keeping in mind that academics is only 1 piece to this.”