by JEN BIUNDO

Hays High School students won’t lose their senior perk of an optional lighter course load in their final year, school administrators said Monday. But students will still be urged to sign up for a full day of classes when they register for their senior year.

Many Hays seniors find that they can fulfill all graduation requirements and still free up two class periods in their final year, getting out of school at 2 p.m. rather than 4 p.m. Lehman High School allows seniors to take off one class period, while Hays High School has historically permitted the two free periods, said Hays CISD spokesperson Julie Jerome.

“In the climate of increased rigor, and trying to better prepare our students for college, we discussed last week the removal of that,” Jerome said.

In a flurry of email campaigns, Hays parents reacted strongly to news last week that Hays counselors were telling juniors they had to sign up for a full course load of seven classes, rather than five, during registration for their upcoming senior year.

While saying that the changes weren’t mandatory, school administrators defended the decision.

“If we’re not encouraging our seniors to take a more challenging full load to get them ready for college, then we’re not doing our job,” said Hays High School Principal David Pierce.

But with full class loads, jobs, college applications and extra-curricular activities, parents say their kids are overscheduled already and could use some breathing room before they get burned out.

“It is hard enough that they go to school all day, then come home and work on duel credit courses and essays most of the evening,” said Hays parent Laura Morrisey, whose son is now a junior. “Throw work into that, and you have one very tired kid.”

Hays High School junior Sarah Wilson said she carefully planned out her high school schedule over the last few years with an eye on taking just five classes in her senior year, including taking high school classes in eighth grade. After a stressful junior year, the upcoming lighter class schedule is welcome.

“We all kind of look forward to it,” Wilson said. “I was hoping maybe senior year would be a little more relaxed. The grades ahead of us got this kind of opportunity. It just seemed fair that we would get it.”

The school district doesn’t want students to look at their senior year as a cruise year, Pierce said.

“Really, we don’t want them to just do the minimum,” Pierce said. “We want to give them the best. This is a good school and we want our kids to take advantage of everything we have to offer.”

After meeting the core requirements, students can use the leftover periods to take a variety of subjects such as art or music electives, shop classes, mechanics, pre-engineering courses, agricultural science, computer electives, work-study courses or duel credit college classes, in which the students can earn credits through Austin Community College free of charge, Pierce noted.

“I would love to see the thought process be, ‘I have five classes I have to take but there’s two others I want to take,’” Pierce said. “We’ve got a lot of really cool classes.”

Pierce said the proposed changes weren’t mandated, but rather, strongly encouraged.

“Our plan was to strongly encourage our seniors to take the seven classes,” Pierce said. “We were really pushing them to do this.”

But many parents say their kids were told they had to add two classes to their schedule. Sandi Kornfuehrer, whose daughter is a junior at Hays, said she was told by school staff that the seven-class minimum was a “done deal.”

Kornfuehrer said over the last four years she and her daughter have carefully planned her honors class schedule.

“She’d just be taking extra courses to possibly lower her GPA and change her class ranking,” Kornfuehrer said. “If they’re going to do this, they need to implement it with the freshman coming in, so everyone is very clear about the expectations.”

Friday night, Kornfuehrer sent out hundreds of emails urging parents to rally and voice their opinion, and on Monday, the parents were told their students still could keep the shortened schedule.

“I’m actually proud of the district for listening,” Kornfuehrer said.”I’m hoping that they’ll get some feedback from the parents before they make a major decision like this again that impacts student’s lives.”