Students will receive course registration information on Jan. 21 to pick which classes they want for the next school year. On April 6 -10, arena scheduling — which allows students to arrange classes in to personalized schedules — will be available for rising seniors.

“Our goal is to graduate students with college, career or military readiness,” lead counselor Kim Clingan said. “[Arena scheduling] falls into place with one more opportunity for us to make sure students are ready for that first day of college. We’ve always had problems with students who aren’t happy with their schedules, and this gives an opportunity for students to feel more comfortable with those choices [regarding courses] and more confident with those choices.”

The classes will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Rising seniors who opt out of arena scheduling will have their schedules made traditionally, by having their selected classes randomized in Skyward.

“It is like college,” Clingan said. “If there are only 25 spots available in first period English IV, and those spots get taken up, then nobody else can take those spots.”

Junior Amanda Godfrey said arena scheduling will be beneficial, but she thinks there will be a high demand for some classes during certain times.

“[Arena scheduling] also makes it easier if you’re doing two AP classes and you want them separate, you can do that, which is nice,” Godfrey said. “I’m not looking to graduate early, but I think it’ll help if I don’t want economics and government and AP English [at the same time.]”

The Colony High School has implemented arena scheduling for three years. Like The Colony, other grade levels will be added if arena scheduling goes well. 

“This is something that Skyward has had available since we started doing Skyward years ago, but we’ve never actually used it,” Clingan said. “It’s going to be a little work ahead of time, but come August, there aren’t going to be the surprises that students have had in the past.”