by Audrey Farris ‘25

This school year there are an increasing number of alternative education opportunities for upperclassmen, mainly early college dual enrollment through Montgomery College or University of Maryland and half-day/abbreviated schedules for students with jobs or internships. More and more students are taking advantage of these opportunities, which has decreased enrollment in Sherwood’s elective courses and raises the possibility that Sherwood will stop offering courses that are currently running.

The largest contributing factor to this issue has been the rising number of seniors with abbreviated/half-day schedules. Principal Tim Britton corroborated a figure from a school database showing that approximately 390 seniors have a first period class, while only 260 seniors have a seventh period class, meaning that a third of seniors do not have full day schedules.
These numbers do not account for at least 15 juniors or seniors who attend MC full-time and take no classes at Sherwood. Additionally, there also is a smaller number of juniors participating in dual enrollment.

Lynnette Evans-Williams, the head of the English department who also teaches the new elective African American Literature, explained that the combination of many elective options and the appeal of abbreviated schedules/dual enrollment programs have contributed to a large decrease in enrollment throughout many different English electives. Specifically, she noted that “Creative Writing, which is a semester-long course, is only running for one semester this year,” while in previous years having been able to run during both the fall and spring semesters because of higher enrollment. “Other electives have been dropped entirely due to low enrollment,” she added.
When enrollment drops in electives, the impact also can be felt on Sherwood’s extracurricular programs in areas such as music, theater, and publications. “In band classes you look for something that’s called a complete instrumentation, so with the lower enrollment numbers that means you are not going to have that,” explained instrumental music teacher Alex Silverbook, who teaches five elective courses. “I might not have enough players even on one instrument. Right now in Jazz Band we are at two trumpet players, where really I was hoping to have four. One of the trumpet players I would have had is now doing an abbreviated schedule so that took him out of Jazz Band. It affects the quality of the ensemble as a whole.”

Loss of electives and lower participation in school activities haven’t been the only impact that abbreviated schedules and dual enrollment have had on Sherwood. “We have lost teaching positions over the years because of students not doing full schedules here,” explained Britton.

A full-time teacher teaches five classes per day, and when Sherwood drops the number of elective courses offered, teachers will have to teach more core classes. When enrollment drops or when students are taking core courses elsewhere that could be offered at Sherwood, the number of full-time teachers needed shrinks since there will be less core course class periods to fill each teacher’s 5-period requirement.