The school has expanded its sports class offerings this year, adding girls’ volleyball to the mix — but scheduling conflicts have forced some athletes to decide between their sport or an academic class.

The school currently offers four sports classes: girls’ volleyball, boys’ basketball, boys’ baseball and morning lifting for football. The school requires that student athletes who play these sports enroll in the offered classes and gain 10 credits in the process.

Sports classes are common among larger high schools, including Westlake High School and Agoura High School, but at Oak Park — a smaller school that offers fewer sections of a particular class — some students have run into trouble when trying to accommodate their schedules.

“When you look at that whole master schedule, it’s not just athletic periods … you know we can’t offer six periods of a class — of an AP class,” Assistant Principal Jason Meskis said.

Because the school offers these mandatory classes, some student athletes have not been able to participate in their desired sports this year.

Junior Serena Yi played on the volleyball team her freshman and sophomore years and has been playing volleyball for five years.

“I was excited about the idea, but I was worried that it would conflict with the entire schedule I had already planned,” Yi said.

She was ultimately required to choose between school and volleyball and chose school.

Junior Ben Rubenfeld, similarly, had to choose between two sports classes. Rubenfeld currently plays on the varsity football team and was a former member of the baseball team. Since the 2015-2016 school year, both of these sports require athletes to enroll in their respective sports classes; however, Rubenfeld could not fit both into his tight schedule, so he chose football.

If Rubenfeld were to take both classes, he would not be able to acquire the school’s necessary requirements to graduate.

“Getting the needed amount of credits is exceptionally hard … without attending summer school to make up the classes you are missing,” Rubenfeld said.

Rubenfeld played baseball for nine years, two of which were spent on the Oak Park baseball team, and this will be his third football season.

Students who want to take these classes, which are only offered one period a day, must re-organize their schedules; student athletes may need to preemptively plan out their four-year academic careers to ensure that they will meet all graduation requirements.

Student scheduling isn’t the only challenge. Adding new sports classes comes with an additional endeavor to find flexible coaches.

“We need a coach who can be here, and then we need to make it work in our scheduling in general,” Meskis said.

Although these classes have created some challenges, they have also been beneficial to some student athletes, like junior and varsity basketball player Wes Slajchert.

“Having the basketball class has helped our team immensely because it gives us extra practice time … but also extra time after school for us to do homework,” Wes Slajchert said.

Slajchert has taken the class since his freshman year, when the basketball class was first offered, though he must take a zero period course in order to fit it into his full schedule. He has been playing basketball for 11 years and this will be his third varsity basketball season at Oak Park.

The classes were implemented at Oak Park in order to better the school’s sports programs as well as help student athletes, according to Meskis. Although there have been difficulties, Meskis said he supports the availability of sports classes.

“I am pro for adding athletic classes. I think it is great because, one, we have a facilities issue,” Meskis said.

The school has to accommodate multiple sports, including cheer and dance teams, that require use of the gymnasium. A sports class, then, allows the school to manage facilities usage so that every team has a turn in the gym.

According to Meskis, having sports classes during the school day is also part of an effort to reduce the stress of student athletes.

“They are getting credit for [their sport], and it’s in the school day; hopefully that makes their life a little less stressful,” Meskis said. “I think [the classes are] going to help the success of our programs.”