January 19th ends the first semester of the AHS school year, and with that comes report cards, exams, and grades. In February, AHS students tend to think about next year’s class selection, and start wondering if summer school is necessary.

Summer school classes offer of two opportunities. One opportunity would be to replace the bad grade in the gradebook, and to understand the material. The second would be to take electives for enrichment, this may consist of something that interests the student.

Arrowhead offers a vast number of opportunities for summer school including: ceramics, geometry, journalism, theater, gym and many others, according to the Arrowhead website.

AHS sophomore Emma Mengwasser says she doesn’t take summer school classes to catch up. She says she takes classes “to get ahead.”

Mengwasser says, “I like to take gym during the summer in summer school because then I can just focus on taking more classes during the school year.”

On the other hand, AHS junior Abby Fickel says she “might have to summer school this year because I did not have enough time in her schedule during the school year.” Last year she says she took AM gym, which is gym in hour zero, before school in the morning for an hour.

The Arrowhead website states that summer school meets July 12th through July 20th, Monday through Thursday, with the exception of July fourth. Online classes are not available.

Period one normally starts 7:30 AM, and goes until 9:55 AM. Period two normally starts at 10:00 AM and ends at 12:25 PM. Each student is required to be there “every day and on time,” as the AHS website puts it. Students have an obligation to attend everyday, but with three absences, it results in an ‘F’ for the course.

Other students, like AHS sophomore Cassidy Wolverton, have considered doubling up in a course next year, for her junior year, to meet the required number of credits in order to graduate.

“I am just so busy during the summer, but I just don’t want to pass the class, I want to understand the lessons and such, so I might take it next year and make sure I know it fully,” she says.

Students interested in summer school and what it has to offer may continue to the Arrowhead Website, looking up “Summer School” in the search bar.