In June of 2015, students launched CompareClass.com, a website which allowed students to share their class schedules with each other. And according to many, it was in June 2015 that we allowed the first seeds of anarchy into our school, a once sacred space of learning. Students across the board were seized by its temptation as entire rosters, formerly considered classified information, were suddenly made available to everyone in the class.
Prior to the creation of this blasphemous utility, students would share their schedules on social media such as Facebook or Instagram. “That’s how it’s always been. I don’t see a reason to change,” one Westford mom explains. Students would then be assaulted with a barrage of comments from friends and ‘friends’ alike, expressing both exaggerated despair over the lack of mutual classes or underwhelming enthusiasm at the prospect of spending an entire year with each other. The issue that CompareClass raises is that not only does it streamline the entire process, it also completely eliminates the need to fake happiness about your five classes with three of the Ewells and the reincarnation of Bertha Mason herself — a trademark of schedule-comparing convention for years.
To preserve traditional scheduling, some guidance counselors have gone to great lengths to prevent those who’ve accessed the site from changing their schedules. As one guidance counselor who wished to remain anonymous explained:
“Class scheduling provides the fundamental building blocks of our school community. Its divine importance manifests itself as a personal, intimate relationship between counselor, student, and parent”
Some, however, fear that the damage has already been done and that nothing can change the shifting of the tides.
Three months later, some maintain that CompareClass has truly decimated these once hallowed halls. Everything has changed. Guidance counselors are contemplating their career paths, lamenting the end of the good ol’ days when class schedules were “between counselor and student, not student and student.”
“It’s [anonymous] and Eve, not Eve and her friends in E block DLT,” muttered several distressed counselors.
But conservatives’ worries may finally be placated by the most recent development in this conflict: two counselors have filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. “This has fundamentally changed the meaning of ‘guidance’. What’s next — teachers? Will students be allowed to give instruction and assign homework to other students, too?” The case is scheduled to be heard in court next Friday.
