Although students have persistently asked the Stressed Out Committee members for a later start time, the vote to allow for any changes has not properly polled the opinions of the staff and students.
Despite the fact that students will be most heavily impacted by the implementation of second semester’s schedule for the entire 2008-09 school year, teachers nullified all student grievances and failed to alleviate stress for students.
According to a brown bag lunch meeting, guidance counselor and SOS member Susan Shultz articulated that teachers would make the final decision because their job is to help students balance their academic lives. However, some teachers have forgotten that students must get adequate sleep and enough time to transport themselves to school in order to be fully prepared to learn. As teachers, their obligation is to act in the best interest of their students, which include getting an adequate amount of sleep.
According to an article written by Nemours Foundation, teenagers should receive at least eight to nine and a half hours of sleep to function most effectively in their classes. Students could perform better in their classes and participate more often during class, thus putting less strain on teachers to plan several lesson plans to captivate their students’ attentions during morning periods.
The extension of the second semester schedule for the entire year, originally placed on ballots as a default, tended to favor the athletes who prefer early finishes for Thursday. Although this applies to only one day and most students are not even enrolled in school sports, teachers decided to use the extension of second semester as a default to this whole schedule instead of implementing the first semester schedule, which features a later start with a regular ending time. The Paly teachers and administration must steer clear from placing biased choices on ballots towards student athletes and may want to consider students involved in other activities, such as in music, theatre, and girl scouts, next time.
Most surprisingly, it also seems that the student feedback from the survey administered by the SOS committee has been ignored, after the teachers’ vote. The administration has seemed to have forgotten that 82% of students would prefer a later start, according to a press release by Student of Activities Director Allison Davies-Mullins, and only considered the opinions of teachers. As this schedule impacts the teachers and students equally, students must have their voices heard through the survey that they carefully took time to complete, anticipating positive results.
Because of the stringent rules for ratification, which consist of a two-thirds approval, this vote poorly assessed teachers’ opinions.
Lastly, according to English teacher Kevin Sharp, teachers did not have all the information when faced with making this decision. The ballot did not inform teachers that the second semester schedule would be placed as a default in case no one ratified the minor changes. Sharp, who attended multiple meetings, also felt that teachers did not have adequate information about traffic and public transportation schedules, to be certain about their decisions.
Due to their lack of voices and ears from the administration and teachers, students find their cause abandoned and their efforts – which include creating the SOS committee, taking surveys, and even writing opinion pieces such as these – completely in vain. A cause to decrease stress for students has led to a further increase in sleep deprivation, which prevnets students from functioning the best they can. Students at Paly must call for another vote, this time integrating the voices of both teachers and students to serve everyone equally.