What is a semester?
The school year is divided into 4 quarters.
Two quarters=1 semester.
There are 2 quarters before winter break and 2 quarters after winter break.
There are 2 semesters each school year.
What are credits?
Each class is worth a certain amount of credits.
Most classes are worth ½ credit per semester.
Therefore, if a student takes a class for an entire year, he or she earns 1 credit.
Students are required to have a specific amount of credits, in each subject area, to graduate. For more information on graduation requirements, click on the “Graduation Requirements” tab.
What is GPA?
GPA stands for Grade Point Average.
GPA is calculated by semester, not by quarter.
The GPA for each semester is the average of how the student did in both quarters.
For example, if a student earned a 90% for a class 1st quarter and a 95% for 2nd quarter, his or her semester grade would be a 92.5% (the average of quarter 1 & 2).
How is GPA calculated?
A student’s grade for each class is worth a certain amount of points.
The maximum amount of points for any class is 4.00, which would mean the student earned an “A” for the semester.
The grade point value for every class is calculated, then these are averaged to get the overall semester grade point average.
Cumulative GPA is the average of every semester's GPA.
See the "Course Description" guide for more information on grades.
What is a transcript?
A transcript is a document that shows all of the classes a student has taken.
The transcript shows the semester grades for each class, GPA, cumulative GPA, and test scores.
Transcripts are important because colleges, technical schools, and jobs look at how well a student did in high school.
Transcripts also allow the counselor to help you make decisions on which classes to take throughout high school.
How do I set my schedule up for the next year?
Mrs. Owens will meet with each student at the end of each year to take course requests for the next school year.
Mrs. Owens uses the graduation requirements and the student's transcript to help students make decisions on which classes they should take.
Students have 5 days at the beginning of each semester to change their schedule.
It's always a good idea to talk to the counselor if you have any questions!