By Julia Angelotti, Executive Editor
Three hundred and seventy. That’s the amount of days left in a high school career for a student when they enter the familiar doors of Kaneland High School and start their junior year. Six thousand and three hundred. That’s not only the amount of minutes, but extra sleep that has been taken away from the juniors, sophomores and freshman given that each student would sleep in 35 extra minutes each school morning.
Those 6,300 minutes, 105 hours, were possible for all students to obtain last year, since students were not required to be at school until 8:15 in the morning. This year however, that was taken away from all students, excluding seniors.
Junior year marks the start of being considered an ‘upperclassman’. For most not only does this mean being one year closer to standing on the fence for those Friday night football games, having a better relationship with teachers, or having the privilege of being able to drive to school, but being able to make their own decisions.
“I think underclassmen should have to deal with it. Now that I’m a junior I feel like all the stuff I had to do as an underclassman made me work and I’m old enough and mature enough to come and get help when I need it,” junior Noel Delgado said.
So what’s the exact reason for this year’s change? While there have been rumors going around among students, there are multiple reasons. Part of it was to get staff and students to adjust to the earlier start next year. While more focus was on having teachers adjust to helping all students.
“Next year during STEP a student may need to help with math but their math teacher may be teaching at that time, so they may have to go to a different teacher in the math department,” Assistant Principal Jill Maras said.
Junior Brad Kigyos doesn’t see STEP as efficient.
“I honestly don’t like STEP. I simply don’t have enough time to get a good amount of work done by the time it starts. Last year, every day I would go straight to the library and start right away on my homework, I would meet there with friends that I would study with and finish the previous night’s homework.” Kigyos said, “Not only did I get to socialize with my friends, I also got a lot more work done.”
Typically, when administration is behind and idea, I back it up completely, for one reason: they have in mind what is best for us, the students.
Naturally, when I found out about this year’s STEP, Student Teacher Educational Preparation, I was less than thrilled. The second week of being an upperclassman and having those extra 35 minutes of sleep being taken away from me Tuesday-Friday seemed less than fair.
I thought rationally about the situation, for a privilege to be taken away one must abuse that privilege. I began to think of any situation where students abused the old STEN. I couldn’t think of anything.
“[Some students abused STEN] by focusing more on social than academic purposes,” Maras said.
I just kept telling myself that since administration was backing this newly developed plan, that it’d be okay. Well, 19 weeks into it and I’m starting to see otherwise.
“If STEP truly was used for an educational purpose, I’d feel better about it, sure it’s nice to have time to do homework if I forgot about it, but then again students could do the same thing in STEN last year.” Junior Taylor Valezquez said, “I don’t feel that it’s as useful as the board thought. Most students don’t like it; I don’t feel we need this transition for next year.”
On Friday, Dec. 9th, 98 students combined of freshman, sophomore and juniors were polled on their thoughts of this year’s STEP. Thirty-seven percent of students said that they find this year’s STEP to be more efficient than last year, while 43 percent of students said they find it to be less efficient.
Maras pointed out that as a pro of last year’s STEN students were able to choose where they went every day, which they still can there are just obstacles. However, supervision of students was a con. Some do find a positive in this year’s STEP though, freshman Emma Wallace said it’s helpful for people with sports going on, since practices can go late and keep her from getting homework done it allows for her to do it the next morning.
Fourty-nine percent of students agreed, saying that they now turn in more of their homework since they have time to do it during STEP.
Seventy-seven percent of students said that they end up with free time, something that administration is trying to improve for next year, when students will have a 25 minute study hall that will continue to be called STEP, opposite of their lunch.
“We want to make STEP next year absolutely student based, we are looking into ways of making it less of a study hall to reduce students who are just sitting there bored. We want to provide resources,” Maras said.
I walked into the interview with our assistant principal feeling as if adminstration didn’t hear or reconigze any of our feelings or concerns.
I expressed a common concern of students that I found from the survey: students find attending STEP pointless, sitting in a classroom doing nothing, is not beneficial in any way, shape, or form. I explained that I personally that I get my homework and studying done at home, so I truly don’t see any motivation to go to STEP and simply sit in a desk, and have nothing to truly do.
While I was in there, I realized that they truly do care and that they love to hear student body feedback. So I came up with a way of improving this years STEP.
1) As much as us Juniors dread the ACT, the reality of it is that it’s right around the corner. Now, the thought of practice tests at 7:40 in the morning is extremley killer. But also extremley benifecial.
2) Meetings for clubs and student activites. As high school students we should be figuring out what we enjoy doing, we should be consuming our time being involved in as many activities as we please. By taking away meetings during STEP, it’s also taken away students ability to be well rounded.
3) Allow for study groups in certain classrooms. Students that need help in a subject, and only those students should be in a certain class to make both the teacher and students time spent there more efficent. The line to a teachers’ desk seems miles long in the morning.
It’s little things like those, that would give me a motivation to be at STEP on time. Not to mention, make my life a little bit easier.
“Our hope is that STEP time will be a good use of both student’s and staff’s time now and in the future. Next year, a menu of resources would be available and sometimes required for students to access during STEP time is being developed. You will see more of this in the coming months. We also hope that they find STEP to be a valuable part of their day.” Maras said. “Our staff wants to help support and guide our students, and giving us time to do that during the eight period day is a huge part of why we are making this schedule move.”
I understand that we’ve completed half of the 2011-2012 school year, and that it may be too late to make changes regarding this year.
But I finally understand that administration does love to hear student body feedback.