Dear Westlake High School Students and Parents,
You are about to embark on one of your most important responsibilities in high school—selecting your course of instruction for the next school year. The courses you take will be a part of your high school transcript, and during your Senior year, they will be one of the criteria that colleges use to evaluate your performance at Westlake. It is important that you are familiar with the requirements for your graduation prior to making selections. In addition, you should read carefully the course descriptions in order to ensure that you meet the requirements for the class and that the class is truly appropriate for your interests. As you will see in the course descriptions, we have replaced the name of our Pre-AP courses to Honors Courses. This is a name change only for our Honors Courses will have the same curriculum standards and receive the same GPA bonus.
In addition to the course descriptions in this guide, please notice and complete the Time Management form to assist students in selecting their courses and activities. In an effort to help our students challenge themselves appropriately while maintaining a healthy lifestyle, we urge students and parents to use this Time Management form along with the Course Hours sheet when selecting new classes. The Course Hours sheet provides an estimate of how many hours outside of class a student will need to devote to that class to be successful. These numbers are meant as a guideline, not a limit. Please recognize that the time a student spends on homework will vary based upon student preparedness, student focus and effort, learning/study habits, homework environment, age, developmental stage, etc. The Time Management form allows students to enter total estimated homework time for all their courses, along with estimated times for extra curricular activities and daily living activities, including sleep. Research has shown that high school students need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep consistently each night for physical and mental health as well as academic progress.
Remember that there are many people at Westlake to assist you in your decision making process for next year. Your counselor, teachers, and principals are all excellent resources for you in determining what classes to take.
Steve Ramsey
Principal