by Kyndal Tillman | Staff Writer

School is almost over, and summer is only weeks away. Most students look forward to having free time and no school, but many students continue to take classes in the summer. Summer classes can help clear a schedule of necessary credits for the upcoming school year, and students can get ahead of others in their grade.

“I am going to take speech this summer. Most people in my grade have taken it junior year, or plan on taking it senior year. It’s one of those classes that nobody really wants to take unless they enjoy speaking in front of a lot of people. The summer class counts as my speech credit, and I heard it was more laid back than the class during the school year,” junior Sophia Pabon said.

Summer classes teach the same objectives as the school year classes, but they also have fewer people attending and less time is spent in the class.

“One of the main reasons I am taking it over the summer is because it’s only a few weeks long. I hate speaking in front of people and giving presentations, so I figured this way would be easier and less stressful for me. There are less people in the summer class, as opposed to over 30 kids in the speech class during the school year. Taking the summer course also frees up my schedule for senior year. This way I can do senior early release or a different elective that I would like to do,” Pabon said.

Many other summer classes are also options like driver’s education. Many students take the needed core classes due to failing the previous year, or not making certain requirements.

“There are a lot of common classes that are taken in the summer because of credits required to pass a grade. We do not have the official summer schedule yet, but this year we are expecting a lot of students to be taking Algebra 1 and English 1. These are the most failed classes, and the ones that are required to pass freshman year,” Johnson Counselor Patti Snider said.

Although core classes are the most taken classes in the summer, there many electives taken as well. Students often like to get credits out of the way earlier rather than later.

“As for electives, a lot of students take speech. Taking speech in the summer is a good idea for shy students because they are smaller classes and are not a semester long. Another class taken a lot in the summer is Spanish. This is also one of the classes students like to get over with, especially those graduating distinguished. Taking classes over the summer is a great option for students because it gets them ahead of the game,” Snider said.