Starting this summer, this school will no longer offer AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics and AP Government as courses that can be taken online during summer session through the Indiana Online Academy (IOA). From now on, students will be required to take AP Macroeconomics and AP Government during the school year to meet graduation requirements. Administrators said they came to this decision after considering learning environments and recognizing that students learn better in in-person settings.
However, this sudden change poses many challenges for current students, especially current juniors, as they now must change their future schedules in order to accommodate two mandatory classes. The Class of 2022 is most affected as rising seniors in that class are now required to take AP Government during their senior year. This may alter their original scheduling plans, which may have included the summer school option, as students were only aware of the change for a few months before they met with their counselors. Therefore, we suggest the school continues to offer online summer courses specifically for the rising seniors to accommodate this sudden change in plans.
A change like this will help ease several problems. First, with the option to still take the three AP courses virtually over the summer, the class of 2022 would be able to follow long-term scheduling plans they decided on to follow before. If they have not yet taken AP Macroeconomics and AP Government, they may have to remove two semesters of courses from their 2021-22 schedule, a change being made very late in their high school career.
Additionally, current students following this year’s virtual learning plan are already taking classes online, many of them being provided through IOA, so virtual learning is inevitable now. All students at this school have experienced virtual learning from last March’s change in circumstances. So taking AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics and AP Government virtually would not be very different from students’ current learning environments.
We understand the administrators’ decision as in-person learning is more beneficial than virtual. However, AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics and AP Government are still available virtually for individuals who are pursuing an IB diploma, so the decision to allow IB students to still take the courses while removing that option for other students is unfair. To combat this discrepancy, we suggest the virtual classes be opened to non-IB students in the Class of 2022 as the change is too sudden for them.
To be clear, the HiLite staff still supports the decision to remove these classes from the IOA in future years as in-person learning is more beneficial to students. However, the sudden announcement of this change is unfairly difficult on current juniors. In order to avoid problems like this, in the future, administrators should make announcements about changes in course requirements and offerings much earlier.
Similarly, there should be more communication between counselors and students to ensure that all students are aware of decisions and changes. These changes, both big and small, can make the scheduling and class enrollment process run much smoother while making the best academic decisions for students.

Click here to learn about what these classes entailed back when they were offered.