My school's administration = clueless

The BBQ Pit
1

MCHS Admin = Clueless:

Ah yes. Such a simple equation, yet so significant.

Flashblack to early 2003… [flashback music: diddle-OO-diddle-OO-diddle-OO-diddle…]
Evidence shows that students (that’s us) who get more sleep (ah, sleep) do better on test scores and are generally happier. Evidence shows?! Evidence shows???!!! I could have told you that, ya scientific morons! Nevertheless, they’re finally listening to us, and they have been discussing moving first period from 7:55 (just a hair past midnight) to 8:30 (another 35 preciousbeautifulwonderous minutes to, yes folks, s l e e p) here at The Home Of The Mustangs.

But, they can’t change it without teacher approval, we’re told. A later start is not in their contract, we’re told. There have been numerous meetings to discuss the possibilities, pros and cons, details, very important legal proceedings. We’re told. Don’t worry, the little voice in my head says. The teachers want more sleep too. They’re human. The other voices erupt in laughter at this last claim. Teachers are not, in any sense of the word, human. However, there is hope.

Several months later…
The teachers have agreed. 8:30 it is. Thank the Universe! Everything be praised. It’s now early summer and the new schedule is effective on the first day of the '03-'04 school year. The traditional “late starts” every two weeks are moved from 8:50 to 9:30, and the “über-late starts” are implemented every four weeks, with school starting at 10:30. Please take a moment to let this information flow through you like a wave of rich molten chocolate: Ten-Thirty.

Friday, January 9th, 2004: A Day That Shall Live In Angst-Ridden Contemptual Horror Forever…
There is an emergency faculty meeting just before classes begin. Emergency? What could the breaking news be? What could this Great Emergency possibly be? The bell rings, we wander into our first class. Wordlessly, a teacher stands, walks from row to row, distributes a two-page letter detailing what we all know by the look on his face can only be the most tragic of newses.

Our suspicions of tragedy are granted. Our suspicions of news are crushed like a dying beetle. Yes folks, the people running our fine school district have made {…wait for it…} a mistake. So much for breaking news. Yes, that’s right, in addition to the library and performing arts building we were promised but have yet to receive, in addition to the $1.3-million-dollar debt they accumulated, while building themselves a new office (that’s $1.3 X 10[sup]6[/sup] or $1,300,000.00 - just look at all those zeros), yes, in addition to all this:

Before I tell you what our new schedule is like, I would like to thank our principal, whom we shall call “Ms. Calculation,” for providing us with a remarkably pristine example of what our English teachers have been telling us for years not to use: the passive voice. Yes, it has now been determined that this information was incorrect. We didn’t determine it. We didn’t come across it in the education code of the Great (cough) State of California (read: Cah-lee-FOH-nia). We weren’t the ones by whom the mistake was made in the first place. It has just, somehow, been determined. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: Ms. Calculation, and The Passive Voice.

But I digress. In addition to reverting to the 7:55 start, the current ending of 3:00 will be maintained. Two of the three minimum days we had all been waiting for breathlessly, scheduled for the 27th, 28th and 29th of January (finals week), are gone. Late starts, gone. Über-late starts? Gone. And the proverbial icing on the metaphorical cake: 3 minutes revoked from “nutrition” (a misnomer, by the way, if ever there was one).

At this point, I would like to direct your attention to the second paragraph in this entry. The one beginning, “But, they can’t change it without teacher approval.” The teachers (not to mention the students, who have apparently resigned themselves to being almost powerless in such decisions) were not consulted about the change at all. Admittedly, maintaining state accreditation is important, but what happened to legal proceedings? What happened, for the love of all that is right in the world, to democracy?! The only reason I bring up the fact that teachers are now being held to contracts they never signed is that I’m trying to find some kind of loophole to prevent this sort of sudden, tyrranical act from happening.

My anger, one of the few things I have in common with other students at our marvelous little school, is beyond description. The last sentence of the letter reads, “We regret the inconvenience this may create in your daily schedule and we know that you will work with us to implement this necessary action.” No, Ms. Calculation, we’ll let you know when to start regretting it, with one of our own “necessary actions.” Believe me, you don’t regret anything yet.

Disclaimer: I’m not really going to do anything violent. This isn’t a threat, it’s just a Pit thread. If you heard me talking about burning the memos in a huge bonfire in the quad, it was a joke, I promise.

If you happen to be a member of http://www.deviantart.com please comment on this little essay at http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/4626336/

2

I wrote an essay many years ago (well, not many; I think it was 1994) explaining why the school/business day should start later than 8 am or 7 am or whatever time early-birds decide the day must start. See, I’m not a morning person. At all. And I know I’m not alone.

Needless to say, I suffered through four years of having to wake up well before I was prepared to wake up. I slept through many, many classes in high school.

Since I got to college I have taken select few (and passed even fewer) passes before noon. Classes after noon = good thing.

I feel your pain. Take solace, I hope, in the fact that in college you can arrange your schedule, many a time (depending on the number of classes scheduled, of course, and other mitigating factors), so that you do not have a single blessed class before 6 PM.

I am not making this up.

3

08:30 is now considered early? I graduated in 92, and 1st period started at 06:45. Listen to your elders: Go to bed earlier.

4

I second iampunha’s advice. My HS started at 7:25. Now that I’m in college, I do have a few 9 am classes here and there, but I come home right afterwards and sleep. If there is anything better than sleep at night, it is most definitely napping throughout the day.

Great essay, by the way.

5

The only time I was ever able to consistently go to bed early was when I worked 40 hours a week at a construction site and also did between 3 and 6 hours of school (let alone schoolwork) a day. In that case I was up between about 630 and 645 most weekdays and asleep by about 10 PM. I ended up quitting that job about three weeks before I had intended because I was just so exhausted.

I’m simply not a morning person. My sleep cycle is such that to wake up at 8 and feel refreshed I’d have to go to sleep around 8 to 12 the previous night, and the only reason that would happen is if I had woken up at about midnight the previous night. And I don’t especially fancy fucking up my sleep schedule for two days just so I can wake up at 8 on one day.

Not coincidentally, I have class at ten this morning, and I will probably wake myself up long enough only to be lucid for that class and my 1 PM class and then treat myself to the cold outside to keep my body fighting to stay awake and warm. Then I will get home, do a little business and take a nap before my 6 PM class. After that, I will be free until 8 AM Wednesday. But then, that is my reward for surviving four years where, by and large, when I was in school the latest I could conceivably wake up was about 8:10 (I made it 8:12 some mornings when I was particularly skillful; I could dress myself in a minute. Yes, I looked like shit. No, I didn’t care). And let’s not even talk about grade school. My father is still recuperating from 10+ years of waking me up for that.

6

Sounds like a lot of people have had some really shitty high schools. I went to three high schools, and the earliest one started was at 8 a.m. The latest was at 9 p.m.

Of course I far prefer University start times - this semester I have to get out of bed for 2 p.m. Tuesdays and 11 a.m. Thursdays. That’s it.

Huzzah!

7

A lot of stuff in life revolves around other folks schedules (For most of the population). Plan on self-employment and wealth to avoid much of this.

8

This is true in the world of business, county, however, in the compulsory levels of school, scheduling ought to be planned around the healthiest and most productive timetable for students, and that means earlier rather than later. This is especially true in high school, as rapidly growing teens need even more sleep than younger children, with nine hours per night the average. Most kids aren’t coming close to getting enough rest considering after school extracurriculars, possible jobs and several hours of homework each night.

The teacher’s union gets veto power on school schedules, but parents and kids have no say. And some doofus makes a goof in the calculations of zero period hours (?!?!) and suddenly everyone’s schedule gets to change without warning?

Something’s rotten in Denmark.

SDMB-Provided-Reason #8,919 for homeschooling the Spawns of Tea.

9

:smack: Later rather than earlier, not the other way around. Good grief. I need to stop posting, clearly, because I cannot stop make mistakes.

10

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TeaElle *
**This is true in the world of business

Life is frequently done on other’s schedules, school, business, sometimes even recreation etc.

11

It just doesn’t always work that way, though. I naturall;y get tired around mindnight, and may not be asleep till 1. 9:30 is a natural time for me to come awake. I choose to work an early schedule, 7-3 (no lunch break) but not everyone can do that, and I’m often very short on sleep, because I’m getting only 5 hours a night some days.

12

For several years I worked at a job where I had to get up at about 4:45 am.

I did it, but never got used to it. I always had to ply myself with lots of caffeine to get through the day. I always felt tired.

Morning people don’t understand how it is. They think that if you are forced to keep a morning schedule, you’ll automatically become a morning person. But if you’re not a morning person, all that will happen is that you will be tired and miserable all the time.

13

So a decision was made to chop 35 minutes off each school day and no one thought to check and see if this might jeopardize state mandated minimum hourly requirements? I am incredulous. One call to the state council that governs education would have, and should have, stopped the proposal in its tracks. Your school administration IS clueless.

Now as far as early birds go, I am a night owl my own self. Left to my own schedule I naturally evolve into a rise at 8, down at 1am schedule. However, given a choice between a 7am-3pm work day and a 9am-5pm work day, I’m going with the former. (In fact, that IS my working schedule.) While I’ll never LIKE getting up at before the birdies, I have gotten used to it.

14

Where’d you go to school? I graduated in '89 in central PA, and first period at our high school started at 8. Here in Western New York, first period doesn’t start until 9 at most places. (I recently found out why, or at least the alleged reason why: the later school starts in the winter, the less likely it will be that there’s a snow delay, as the late start allows the plows to finish running.)

15

First period at my school starts at 8:30. :smiley:

16

I went from 7:30 to 3:00 in 5th and 6th and from 7:15 to 1:45 from 7th to 12th. I always thought our day was really short in middle and high school. We did go from the last week in August to the third week in June though (if there were no snow days).
We never got any late starts that weren’t snow related but we did get work release when we were Seniors.

17

Thank you for all the replies. I know, I should go to sleep earlier, but sometimes I’m just not tired, or I’m simply stubborn. Or I’ve procrastinated and by 10 or 11 or so I have no choice. Can’t wait until college, though.

Anyway, I just wanted to add that the alleged three minutes removed from snack were actually five. The memo we received said that snack would be three minutes shorter, but the attached schedule says snack is from 10:04 to 10:14. So, 10:14 - 10:04 = 15 - x, because snack was originally 15 minutes. It doesn’t take a calculus major to know that x=5, and 5≠3. Yes, our principal has truly earned the name I gave her.

18

No say! Who do you think elects the School Board, which has the power to make all these decisions. And most School Board elections get little attention and even less volunteers* & contributors, so a small group of committed parents can make a big deal of difference in such elections.

So complain to the school board if you aren’t happy with something in your school.

*Volunteers to do campaign work, like dropping literature, stuffing envelopes, etc. are always in short supply. And there is no requirement that you be of voting age to do these tasks–you can do them as a student in the schools. You will be welcomed by your school board candidate. And remembered! Having a School Board member who comes to your school recognize you by name, and ask how you are will be noticed by the school administration!

19

You get a SNACK?!

20

Then do something that makes you tired. Jog a mile, do a hundred situps, watch Must-See-TV…