The digital world has made its way into nearly every corner of daily life, securing its place as an anchor of any modern existence. This expansion has spared no activity, as students increasingly turn to online courses for their education.
According to the American Association of School Administrators, there was a 45.9% increase in online class enrollment from 2019 to 2022. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, since there is already familiarity with online class-taking, students are more comfortable returning to the online world for classes.
“15% of students are taking a class outside [of Piedmont],” counselor Chris Hartford said. “About four of my students have two or three [outside classes].”
Senior Brooke Patchen is taking three online classes, two of which are graduation requirements.
“I’m taking American Government and Politics in place of Civics and Macroeconomics instead of Econ,” Patchen said. “I had to work my schedule around and it was the only way I could take the classes I wanted to take.”
Similarly, sophomore Audrey Levin took a graduation requirement, Health Science, online. For both students, the lack of schedule space led them to prioritize taking electives in school, opting to complete their graduation requirements elsewhere.
“I took Health online because I wanted to do a language, band, and APCSP as a sophomore and there wasn’t enough room to do those with health in my schedule,” Levin said. “I think there should be less things required. I’ve heard the health class is really good, but it’s also annoying especially as a sophomore when there’s not many other choices you can make with your electives.”
Many students, such as senior Laurel Minor, are taking language classes outside of school; while these classes are not required for graduation, completion of four years of language classes is strongly recommended for college admissions.
“I didn’t have space in my schedule for AP Spanish,” Minor said. “But I wanted to complete the language pathway.”
With the increase in online class availability, it has become much easier for students to maximize the number of AP classes they can take. AP Statistics is another course that many students, such as Minor and fellow senior Darcy McKee, have been taking online due to its unavailability at PHS.
“If they had AP Stats here, I wouldn’t have taken it online,” McKee said. “It’s a bit of a hassle, but I wanted to show that I was interested in math.”
Outside of maximizing AP classes, Hartford described how students are able to use online classes as a way to avoid the risk of bad grades in their classes at school.
“What’s gonna happen is that if anyone is getting a low grade in the class, they’re aware of the fact that they can do it somewhere else,” Hartford said. “They’ll say ‘Why don’t I just take it somewhere else and get a better grade?’ It’s a game to avoid a low grade, which is sad because [if] students can pay to take an outside class … then some people are at a disadvantage.”
Hartford said he believes that this trend, specifically within Piedmont, is due to a recent policy change from the school board.
“The board made a rule where it will transcript four year-long classes,” Hartford said. “They created that without any input from the counselors. I would say that the overall thought is colleges prefer to see you take stuff at your school, but I don’t have any evidence that it’s negative to take it outside.”
