POTTSTOWN >> A freshman’s first day of high school is stressful enough, but for about 50 of the 280 who stepped through the doors of Pottstown High School last week, there was an extra stress – no schedule.
And, it turns out, it wasn’t just the freshmen.
Principal Danielle McCoy said the problem appears to be related to the Sun Guard scheduling software the district uses and it has made the first week of school extremely difficult, because even fixing problems doesn’t fix the problems.
“I’ve gone in and fixed problems myself and come back the next day, and it didn’t take,” said a frustrated McCoy.
Admittedly, a number of the incoming freshmen did not have schedules because they missed the opportunity to make one up while they were still in middle school.
But nevertheless, McCoy said the scheduling problems this year have been worse than she’s ever seen them and they are not confined to the freshman class – or even just to scheduling.
“I was speaking with the assistant principal and he said they are even getting it with discipline issues,” said John Armato, the district’s director of community relations. “He went in to update something and it spit out information about a student who graduated last year.”
McCoy said students are also complaining because they are being marked absent from classes they don’t know they have and Armato said it is not even clear to classroom teachers that they have up to date lists of the students who are supposed to be in class.
McCoy said she spent the holiday weekend “going through the schedule of every student in the school” and making adjustments as best she could, “and by the time I came back in Tuesday, some of them had reverted back anyway.”
Armato said the district is working with the company that provided the software “but quite frankly, at this point we still are not sure where the problem is.”
McCoy said the problem has become so pervasive that she intends to send an email home to all parents updating them on the situation.
“I just want everyone to know we’re aware of the problem and we’re working on it,” said McCoy, who sighed and added “this is no way to start the school year.”
