Natick High Students: Overwhelmed or Underwhelmed?

There has been buzz recently at Natick High School (NHS) about the new policy where students are not allowed to overload their schedules. Overloading is when a student replaces a scheduled study with another course, either for more credits or simply for an extra challenge. The new policy, which states that a student be “challenged but not overwhelmed,” seems like a good idea to the NHS staff. However, some students are feeling underwhelmed due to these restrictions. One student Rachel Deng, a freshmen, started a petition to show the students’ perspective on this issue and hopefully get the school to change its policy.
Deng started her petition after hearing about the policy from some classmates. They had spoken to their guidance counselors about overloading their schedules but were denied. In order for the petition to work (Care2 Petitions), she needs a minimum of 100 signatures. With 78 signatures as of March 9, Deng is already over 75 percent there.
We conducted an interview with Deng, where she disclosed to us what she had hoped to accomplish with this survey. “I hope that the guidance counselors and administrators will realize that, at the root of it all, students love to learn,” she told us. “Some students wish to pursue more, and that should be accepted and even embraced.” Deng believes that many students want to take more classes in place of study periods or even over the summer. She believes it should be their right to decide whether or not to take on these challenges.
A lot of the concern on the part of the school administration is that classes are getting too crowded because more students are taking classes at one time. However, in the past, this has been avoided by enrolling students in online classes through Tech Connections Learning (TECCL). It was quite successful. This option also allows students to take classes over the summer so that they can take more advanced classes the following year. Why would anyone want to take a class over the summer? Well, as Deng said in her petition, the removal of this option “forces [students] to advance educationally at a slower pace than they would like to.”
There are a lot of bright people at Natick High, and they are not feeling challenged. Do students have the right to supplementary education or should the schools be able to decide when enough is enough? These are questions that both students and administrators are grappling with.