Major changes have been made to Seminar rules and policies this semester. The designated Seminar Committee changed the rules due to the increasing number of students wandering halls, skipping Seminar or not using the designated time for academic purposes.

The new rules are stated below:

1. Students are required the signature of the teacher they will be travelling to on a given sign-out sheet. This must be signed before seminar and on the sheet to be able to travel.

2. Students may only travel to one teacher per seminar period and must stay in the seminar they are in for the entirety of the period.

3. No one is allowed in the halls after 2:30 p.m.

4. Seminars are closed on Fridays (except in special circumstances such as last Friday, when many people were back in school after sickness that needed assignments.  These students were assigned absentee passes and were allowed to travel to multiple teachers).

Since early December, the Seminar committee had been discussing the need of an immediate change in seminar policies.  The 12 members believed that the instructions in the student handbook regarding Seminar were not being followed correctly and should be revised.

“The problem was that kids were doing their own thing and basically leaving to go wherever they wanted. There was no accountability to make sure kids arrive where they signed out to.  By getting approval ahead of time by a teacher, it cleans up a lot of the problems that we had,” Principal Mark Meyer said.

The committee, which is led by chairman Kevin Crisp and co-chairman Susan Coffee, met over winter break multiple times and wanted to re-emphasize what the student handbook had to say about seminar, which led to the new rules.

According to the committee, there wasn’t enough focus on the academic purpose of seminar.

“Our number one focus for Seminar should be academic progress,” Meyer said.  “But the focus wasn’t there.”

Coffee said the need for change was imminent.

“Kids were skipping school or wandering halls.  No one was using seminar for academic purposes,”

Although DHS’ staff believe the changes have already made Seminar more like what it was meant to be, many students are displeased with the changes.

“I prefer the old rules better,” sophomore Caesar Villa said.  “It gave me more freedom, and it was easier to get my assignments if I missed a day.”

Changes made in seminar policies for second semester