Drama and journalism students got quite a shock when they received their schedules for the 2013-2014 school year. The musical theater class and mandatory print journalism classes for sophomores, Advanced Composition and Journalism 1, were scheduled at the same time. This forced students to decide which class they would take.

Sophomore, Sydney Wolfe, was looking forward to following the print journalism pathway and taking musical theater. When Wolfe realized both classes were during the same period, she knew she would have to make a choice.

“I very, very reluctantly chose to do print journalism because it could affect many more classes I take through high school,” Wolfe said. “Though I would love to be an actor growing up, I would have more career opportunities as something with writing.”

Roughly 40 students were affected by the scheduling conflict. Carrie MacBrien, communications and journalism academy leader, has offered the students in the situation a chance to change their pathway to graphic design or broadcast. The students had to decide which direction they would take.

“Students are going to have to make a choice on which one they are more passionate about,” MacBrien said. “Which in some ways may be a benefit because you’re going to have the really dedicated students who are either going to be in the print pathway or taking musical theater.”

Musical theater and AP U.S. History teacher, Lee Pope, said the goal was to have 60 or 70 students in the musical theater class, but with the way academies are set up, there are roughly 25 students in the class. He said many key students in musical theater were unable to take the class because of the conflict.

“I have kind of worked it out to where they can still be in the show,” Pope said. “They just can’t take a lead role. They can still dance in the chorus.”

MacBrien said it’s unlikely that these students will be impacted by the scheduling of musical theater in the future.

“One of the things that I think makes Grady really great is that we have so many classes that students want to take,” MacBrien said. “The difficult part is that they don’t all fit in their schedule and so it really becomes a question of choice.”