Yet again, our faculty is fixing one of our programs to better the students, education, and school day here at our National Blue Ribbon School.  Recently, the administration has made modifications to Enrichment, a time for students to work on their school – load and have teachers help them. Unfortunately, these new policies are preventing students from using all the resources enrichment can provide.

One new adjustment states that teachers can no longer claim students who have not been signed up anywhere.  A student who has come to school late or was not able to sign up with a teacher will have no other option except going to the auditorium. This restricts students from making up a test or re-doing a quiz, causing tons of frustration.

Along with this, teachers can no longer write passes for students who need to visit another teacher they are not signed up with.  If you sign up with a teacher but then need to go and finish a quiz in another class, you’re out of luck.  This confinement to the classroom not only causes difficulty for the student, but for the teacher who needs the student to makeup the missing work.

Enrichment is an hour in the middle of the day where students should be allowed to use the many resources our school can offer – including printers and microwaves.  The microwaves that sit in the department offices are used by teachers for maybe five or ten minutes.  But, students are no longer allowed inside the offices to use these appliances.  What’s so damaging about letting students warm up some mac and cheese?

The printers in these offices – full of ink, paper, and materials some students don’t have access too – are also not allowed to be used by students.  If one needs to use the printer, they have to use the one in the library, even if they are using a computer in a teacher’s classroom.

Another downfall on the sudden modifications of enrichment are the hall monitors —everywhere.  On an innocent trip to the bathroom or when you’re a hurry to get lunch, you have the possibility of being stopped and asked for a pass. We fully understand these efforts to keep the school as safe as a prison, but is it really worth having a teacher at every corner, teachers that could be out teaching students?

Teachers already have various duties in the cafeteria and auditorium, plus the numerous clubs a majority of the teachers advise, thus limiting the days they can offer enrichment.  Now, these hall duties are stealing an entire period a student could have been making up a quiz or given instruction by a teacher.

Along with these hall monitors comes not one, or two, but three hall passes students need to be aware of. It seems a bit ridiculous, but you must use a blue or yellow pass from the teacher that you are signed up with, not the planner passes issued to students at the beginning of the school year.  Each teacher has three yellow passes, used for the cafeteria and three blue passes, used for destinations such as the bathroom and nurse’s office.

The intentions to make a schooler a safe and happy place are very evident but it should not conflict with students efforts to learn.