On January 8, all Portsmouth High School students in grades 9-11 were sent an email on the Course Selection Overview Guide. In the email, it explains everything you need to know about choosing classes and the resources you have available for assistance.  Some examples of resources include counselor meetings, teacher recommendations for specific courses, and lastly the program of studies. 

The course selection process at PHS is made up of three phases. Phase 1 begins in January and this is where students explore courses independently, and semester I teachers submit course recommendations for students.

 Phase 2 starts in February, and in this phase, school counselors meet with students to help complete course selection workshops. 

Lastly, Phase 3 is in March. In this period, semester II teachers put in recommendations for students, selections are finalized with parent approval, and all course requests are submitted with the help of school counselor support. 

Shelagh St. Laurent, Director of Curriculum and Instruction at PHS, helped explain the course selection process and everything that goes into creating it and running efficiently. St. Laurent said she would like both students and parents to know about this overall process. She emphasizes the fact that a lot of time and dedication is put into creating the course offerings at PHS and how they have made some additions to the program aimed at helping students be much more successful. 

Students sometimes get annoyed when receiving emails about course scheduling because they feel like it is happening too early, they aren’t thinking about the next school year.

“I get the school emails but they are never clear to me,” said Lyla Saunders, junior at PHS. She believes that important emails like this one need to be explained more, and need to be less complicated which will cause it to be less stressful when planning for the future. 

 St. Laurent explained why it is so important to plan early, by saying, “The course selection and recommendation process is the first step in our master scheduling plan, which is what helps us to run our school.  There are a lot of moving parts with 1100 students, so we start early and collect feedback each year to try to improve the experience for our learning community.” 

While some students find it frustrating, in the end, PHS administration is trying to make it a better learning environment for all. 

More information about Portsmouth High’s course catalogue is available online.