Add additional Young Women's Classes

Our ward is trying to create a 12-13a class and a 12-13b class due to the number of young women. Can't seem to create this class, it only allows me to create additional 12 year old or 13 year old class not a combined class, any suggestions?

I'm not sure if that's supported. If you have enough YW 12-13 that you need two classes, perhaps they should be a 12 class and a 13 class. Not two 12-13 classes. If you've got a ton of 12 but only a few 13, then only one of the 12 classes would include the 13s.

At least, that's my guess. HB2 isn't completely clear on that point.

I can imagine some situations where it might be desirable to have two 12-13 groups to keep some YW together, but the Handbook isn't supportive of any splitting of groups except by age.

qenimadh wrote:Our ward is trying to create a 12-13a class and a 12-13b class due to the number of young women. Can't seem to create this class, it only allows me to create additional 12 year old or 13 year old class not a combined class, any suggestions?

What you are trying to do is not supported. You can't create a split combined class.

We want to do the same thing in our ward since our 12-13 class has 25 girls in it. Our intent is to create two 12-13 classes with girls with mixed ages in both classes, rather than a class just for "to-be 12 year olds" and the other with "to-be 13 year olds."

Handbook (11.1.3) states:

"Young women classes are organized by age-groups. An age-group is all young women who will turn the same age during a calendar year. A class may include more than one age-group."

If a class can include more than one age group (12-13) for example, why can't you have two classes of 12-13 year olds? The confusion here also stems from how this is inconsistent with Aaronic priesthood quorums. If wards have a large number of deacons, for example, they can create a 2nd deacons quorum and age is not a qualifier for boys to be assigned to a hypothetical deacons's quorum A vs. a deacon's quorum B.

Leader and Clerk Resources implements the business rules that were given to the developers. Those were set by the Church councils responsible for defining how they expect the program to be implemented.

The question you are asking is a policy question, which is something best addressed with your bishop and stake president.

mattpace wrote:The confusion here also stems from how this is inconsistent with Aaronic priesthood quorums. If wards have a large number of deacons, for example, they can create a 2nd deacons quorum and age is not a qualifier for boys to be assigned to a hypothetical deacons's quorum A vs. a deacon's quorum B.

Aaronic priesthood quorums are different in that, for example, a 15-year-old deacon would remain in the deacons' quorum, even if his fellow 15-year-olds are advancing to teacher or priest – it's determined by priesthood office. There isn't an equivalent to priesthood office in the young women program, so the organization isn't intended to be equivalent, but instead should be needs-based.

mattpace wrote:We want to do the same thing in our ward since our 12-13 class has 25 girls in it. Our intent is to create two 12-13 classes with girls with mixed ages in both classes, rather than a class just for "to-be 12 year olds" and the other with "to-be 13 year olds."

The bottom line is you can't do that. You'll have to split by age.

Question (and not being argumentative, really!): Could you simply set up the classes online as one large 12/13 class, and then in practice simply split things as desired? I'm uncertain what requirement there is for the online structure to match what you're exactly doing. Sure it would be nice for the teachers and young women organized online to reflect what you're doing, but I don't see this as preventing you from doing what you desire (yes, it requires more manual effort and isn't as clean).

I'd refer to the Handbook section on "Adaptation", but it seems both online and the app don't have this section updated yet (that's another story). But my thought is that you organize things online per the specified structure, and then in practice adapt as best fits your specific needs (with Bishop approval and within the Handbook guidelines for adaptation, etc)

BrianEdwards wrote:I'd refer to the Handbook section on "Adaptation", but it seems both online and the app don't have this section updated yet (that's another story).

Something does seem to be "in progress" there. For now, you'll have to find a way to the old Handbook 2, chapter 17 "Uniformity and Adaptation". I'd post a link, but all I see are chapter headings, not any text.

Going from memory, in really broad terms, it was how to adapt church programs when the membership is too small. Apparently, the answer to "too big" is to split the quorum/class/ward, etc. It justifies subtracting things, not adding things (like third counselors).