It’s that time of year! It’s the beginning of the 2nd trimester of school, and the new classes are in full swing. Students are excited about the new things they’re learning.

“As much as I liked my old classes, I'm already learning new and interesting things,” says sophomore Emily Chapdelaine.

Many students are enjoying a new mix of subjects and teachers. Some don’t have very difficult classes, which makes the holiday season much more enjoyable.

Junior Carly Thompson is happy to have a smaller workload this trimester. 

“It’s so nice to have a break," she said.

But others have a lot of very tough and demanding classes on their plates this trimester. Quite a few students find this to be extremely stressful and wish that the administration would make a nice mix for everyone.

“A lot of kids get one trimester of hard classes, and then one of ridiculously easy classes. It’d be nice to have trimesters of moderate difficulty. You know, spread the classes out a little more and throw electives into the mix,” said sophomore Emily Chapdelaine who has both Geometry and English this trimester.

“That is our goal,” said Charlevoix High School counselor Mrs. Karrie Gaffney about the complaints of the difficult classes, “We’re trying our hardest to have three core classes per trimester for everyone, but there is only so much we can do. It all depends on when the classes can be offered. First and second trimesters for juniors are especially challenging because we want to get all their core classes in to prepare them for the ACT.”

On the other hand, a many students don’t have anything wrong with their schedules. Senior Vince Von Lou is very happy with his subjects, “They’re as cool as Han Solo in carbonite.” 

Another thing troubles many of the students. However much they enjoy their classes, they would like to have seminar time back. The school got rid of the study hall time in 2010, and since then, a lot of students have been mourning the loss of their seminar.

“Even if we had a seminar two or three times a week at the end of the day, it would make things a lot easier. Fall and spring would bee less stressful for athletes. We could have a 40 minute schedule on seminar days, so classes would only be shortened by a few minutes,” senior Annie Dipert said. 

When trimesters were put into effect by the Charlevoix High School officials, seminar waved goodbye to CHS students. The school wanted to give trimesters a shot, because they would be able to offer new and unique options for their students. One unique option is that the administration is now offering direct credit classes, which means that students who take these classes earn college credits for them.

“There are several business and health classes that are available to the students. And next year we will hopefully be adding speech and sociology to the list of direct credit classes. We’d also like to add and ACT Prep class to help juniors as they get ready to take the test in the spring,” Gaffney said.