Picture this: each morning, you’re running out of the auditorium to your homeroom. You throw your backpack to the ground and run next door. “Do you have enrichment?” you cry, only to be met with a shake of the head. You run out of this room and to the first floor to meet your English teacher. The same question is asked to her, with the same reply. There are people spilling out of your government teacher’s room, and you get there just as the last slot on the signup sheet is filled. A teacher across the hall has first half open, you don’t have him as a teacher, but you sign up yourself and your three friends anyway and hope for the best. You text your friends, telling them where you are headed. You beg for them to join in your frantic chase, to lift some of the crushing weight off your shoulders. Met with no response. Just as you round the corner on the second floor, to the last room you can think of, the bell rings, and the door shuts. You huff and jog to homeroom. The announcements drone on in the background while you run up the stairs to your second-floor locker, shove your backpack inside, and slide into your seat just as your teacher calls your name. Welcome to Hereford High School.

For freshmen or new students, the scene I just described may seem strange. Alas, that was my morning everyday last year. The auditorium is boring and there is no room to do work, and the lunchroom gives me panic attacks, so I was coerced into choosing a place to sign myself and my friends up for enrichment hour every day. We weren’t supposed to sign up our friends, but all of my friend’s buses came late, and they didn’t have time to sign up themselves. Each room would have a sheet for you to write your name and enrichment number. Then, the teacher would log you into “the system,” if they remembered.

This year, a heavenly gift was bestowed upon us: AllTimely (cue harp music)
Hereford is one of the only schools in Baltimore County to use AllTimely. Many other schools don’t have enrichment hour at all.

AllTimely was handed the reigns of Hereford’s enrichment signup system, and it has done a pretty amazing job. All Timely isn’t perfect by any measure. The app doesn’t remember your log in information, and it often doesn’t even work, but the website works smoothly and quickly.

Signing up for enrichment used to be another stress added to an already stressful teenage life, but now that ache is gone, swept away by the aspirin of an online sign-up system. I can sign up for enrichment for the whole week on Monday (or even Sunday!) and if club signups are posted later in the week I can log into the website and change my signup in 30 seconds.

I complain, a lot, especially about decisions the administration makes. But it’s the nondenominational holiday season, and we could all stand to be a little nicer. And thus, thank you, Mr. Covert and the administration, for making all of our lives a lot easier.