Due to a constraint in faculty members, supplies, and classroom space in the science department, students in the class of 2020 and beyond are restricted to taking a maximum of two full years of science electives per school year.

The news of this change was sent out to both students and parents in the form of a letter from Principal Jim Antonelli and Science Coordinator Jenny Kravitz on December 12, 2018.

According to Kravitz, there simply are not enough resources for students to take however many courses they wish.

“Unfortunately, I am constrained by whatever level of teaching staff, classroom space, and curriculum resources I have available,” Kravitz said in a statement released to both students and parents. “Moving forward, I do not have enough of any of those things to continue to allow students unlimited requests for science courses. This is an unexpected restriction that is effective immediately, which prevents any gradual or partial implementation.”

Students in higher grade levels will be given preference over others in classes that become waitlisted, with top priority granted to seniors.

In previous years, students having the freedom to request an unlimited amount of science classes a year resulted in colossal waitlists, where the demands of most were not met.

“By limiting students to two science course requests, we will be able to concentrate our efforts on getting students into their prioritized courses in the midst of unavoidable section limitations. You may recall that unlimited course requests going into our current year generated massive waitlists in the Science Department (some over 50 students in length) that led to much heartache, disappointment, and anger when students were not able to get into the courses they requested,” Kravitz said in the statement.

The science restriction has caused an outbreak of opinions among the class of 2020, with frustration regarding their plans for the next year with unexpected limits on senior schedules.

“So many people are not taking two sciences, or aren’t taking a science [in the first place], so I feel like a few people should be allowed to take more than two sciences, but also, they [the administration] should have alerted us last year so we had the opportunity to take the sciences we wanted to take, because some people only took [one science], thinking, ‘oh, next year I can take all of these,’ but they couldn’t,” said junior Isabella Hillman.

It has been further frustrating for juniors to deal with yet another constraint placed on their schedule. The Class of 2020 has the four-semester gym requirement that the Class of 2019 has been able to find a way around as well as a new art requirement and the existing technology requirement.

“It’s been really annoying, since we have had to face the gym restriction and the art elective requirement. I just hate how all of these have been going down on our class, and honestly, I feel like they should have taken us more into account, and let the class of 2020 actually have a chance, and let them do what they want,”said junior Riha Machireddy.

It is currently not possible to expand the science department, thus, the longevity of this restriction is uncertain.

“Whereas expanding our science sections by adding staff and resources is currently not a possibility, we must be realistic in limiting students to what we can feasibly offer,” Kravitz said in the statement.