So shines a good deed in a weary world

Yesterday was an adventure in bureaucracy.

 I knew it would be.

 I prepared in advance.

 I checked and rechecked that I had all the information I would need, that I would be able to answer every question, address every concern, acknowledge and disarm every argument.

 

Feeling confident, I entered the fray…..at my daughter’s high school guidance office.

Here’s the backstory.  My daughter, a high school senior, only requires two classes to graduate—two.  Unfortunately, one of them is only offered during spring semester and she wanted to take another AP class.  So, essentially, she had three classes she wanted to take.  We carefully put those three classes at the head of her list of requested classes when we completed her registration form last spring.

She also was planning to take at least two classes—one each semester—at our local community college, where high school students are allowed to enroll in classes from a particular list and earn college credit for the cost of books and a small fee.

I knew there would be trouble when the coordinator called from the community college to inform us the only time she could attend her requested class fall semester was Tuesday and Thursday nights from 6-8.  Not a good time—it conflicted with church youth activities and Key Club service projects and afterschool activities that don’t end until 6pm.  Hmm….can it be changed?  Well, not now, we have to wait to see if other sections are opened.  Ok, please keep me informed.  Of course. 

The summer passes….don’t hear anything from college coordinator.  Guess there weren’t any other sections opened.  Now we are going to have to wait until the day fees are due and class schedules are purged for non-payment.  That day passes, I check available sections…..none.

But what’s this?!  There are twice as many sections as there were in June!!  And no phone call ever came!!??!

So, my daughter attends the high students’ orientation session at the community college—the night before the semester starts.  The day before late registration begins.  The last day she can drop a class without getting a zero on her report card at the high school.  Yes….a meeting that important and it’s scheduled at the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT!!!  Knowing the conflicts inherent in the class she was enrolled in, she did the only thing she could, she dropped the class.

Ok, I’m now ready to figure out another class to attend at the community college.  But to be able to find one, we need to have her course schedule from the high school.  Students can be released during school hours to attend the classes at the community college, and the school is on a block schedule, so the class periods are long enough to allow for travel time.  But we need to know exactly what times her classes are scheduled.

Should be easy, right?  Call the school, ask for the guidance office and get her schedule.  Yeah, not so much.

It’s a Friday morning….exactly ten days before the start of the school year and no one answers the phone.  Not in the guidance office, not even the receptionist.  I left multiple messages.  I called several times throughout the morning.  No response.

At lunchtime, with no one answering the phone or returning my messages, I assumed everyone was busy and screening their calls, but wouldn’t be able to ignore me if I was standing in front of them.  So, I drove to the school.  Not a single car in the parking lot.  TEN DAYS until the beginning of school and NO ONE was home!!!!  

So, first day of late registration, which is also the first day of class, passes and my daughter is in limbo.  And the few classes with open seats are closing.

Sunday night I spend perusing the class schedule at the community college, my daughter at my side.  What classes offered at what times still have open seats?  What other classes would you perhaps like to take?  How do the class times relate to the bell schedule at the high school?  What do you mean you don’t know the bell schedule??!! (Breathe, just breathe) What other options are available at the high school in case things need to be changed?  What about virtual school options?  What classes listed there look interesting?

More than three hours later, we have options.  Options for the high school, options at the community college, options for virtual school.  But everything depends on getting her schedule from the high school. 

Side bar here…..for some reason, my daughter’s high school has decided releasing class schedules is tantamount to releasing the president’s daily schedule.  They don’t mail them, they won’t give them over the phone and they really, REALLY dislike giving them out before Open House…which this year is on Thursday night before class starts on Monday.  It’s insane…no other school in the entire district, as far as I know does it this way.  But that’s a harangue I will approach some other time.

So, knowing this, on Monday morning I skip the phone entirely.  With my certain-she-is-going-to-be-embarrassed-by-her-mother daughter in tow, we go into battle.  Well, truth be told, I psyched myself up by repeating over and over, flies and honey, flies and honey.  My plan was to be soft-spoken, personable, understanding but firm.  I was not leaving the school without that schedule.  I was hoping there wouldn’t be a battle, but I was prepared if there needed to be one.

I approach the receptionist, deprecating smile on my face, gesturing over my shoulder to the guidance office, which was closed and completely dark.  Hi, I was wondering if you could help me.  I need to get my daughter registered in a different class at ------ and I need to know when her classes are scheduled here so I can work around them.  I don’t even need to know what classes they are.  I just need to know when.  And I see the guidance counselors aren’t available.  Can you help?

No.  She can’t.  But maybe the attendance secretary can, her office is just around the corner.  Thank you so much…..(and my brain is saying, “Attendance??!  Seriously??!!”  Well, ok….)  And this when it becomes surreal.

Sure, I can help.  Let’s look her up.  Oh….hmmm….(At this I peer through the tiny window into her “office.”  I’d call it an oversized closet) Well, it looks like she’s one of the seniors they’ve been working on this summer.  (Brain: “WORKING ON!!??  What does that mean?!!” ) 

As I lean further through the window, I see on the computer screen one class in a schedule that should have at least two—and what is the class?  ART!!!!  Nowhere on any form did my daughter request ART!!  One semester in her freshman year convinced her that was not where her interests lay.  

Second semester is no better.  She has two of the classes she requested, BUT they are supposed to be taught consecutively, as in one after the other, not at the same time. 

And the required course.  The one she HAS TO HAVE TO GRADUATE??!!!  Nowhere to be seen.  

What am I supposed to do now?!!?  This I did not plan for.  Her entire schedule at the high school needs to be reworked before we can even begin to visit the issue of the college course.  And where are the guidance counselors….the ones that HAVE to approve ANY changes??!!  In a meeting which will last ALL day!!!  REALLY!!! SERIOUSLY!!!

 And best news of all…..my daughter, the SENIOR, is not the only one.  There are at least 20—yes, 20!!—other seniors whose schedules are also, how did she put it?, oh, right, incomplete.

At this point I was losing my grasp on “flies and honey, flies and honey.”  As I prepared to become the high school equivalent of the Terminator in my zeal to locate an administrator to address this nightmare, something incredible happened.  At that precise moment, having clearly snuck out of the meeting to get a drink, check email, breathe some different air, but most importantly, save my sanity, into the office walks the administrative assistant for the guidance counselors.

I wish I could report she was the cure for all that ailed my daughter’s schedule, she wasn’t because she could not make the changes herself—remember only guidance counselors could.  But she was able to start the process and she followed up throughout the day.  A schedule was determined; classes moved to first semester, added to second semester; options decided on and I left for the community college with at least an idea of when a course could be added.

Slight delay in the coordinator’s office…doesn’t anyone work there or is it all about discussions of track and football?  A couple of phone calls around campus to determine if a particular classroom has only the number of seats shown on the schedule or if it was mislabeled, a visit to the bookstore--long line at one, nope not waiting here--quick service and a-books-will-be-how-much??!! gasp at the other and tada!! Miracle of miracles, my daughter was enrolled in, had books for and attended her first day of college.

I still don’t understand the reason behind the failure of class scheduling at the high school and why the school doesn’t allow for parents to get schedules earlier in the summer to address these kinds of issues.  And I wish there was easier way to enroll the high schools students at the college—did learn, after the fact, while physically sitting in the office, that it could’ve been handled over the phone.

But all things together….it was a productive day.  I went to battle with the bureaucracy of two separate educational organizations and came away conqueror.  

 Not a bad day’s work.  Thanks to the hero of the day—an administrative assistant.  They do control the world, you know.