Time Change or No Change
Due to the school’s time change, people are having positive and negative things to say about getting up later and being released out of school later. The time change has taken a toll on teachers and students. After years of talking about it, the change now affects the district’s more than 33,000 students in the 2016-17 school year (as stated in the Durham Public School’s website). In order to improve students academic achievement, DSP system is trying to help student do better and get better in school. “The students are not getting enough sleep at all and the school system thinks that students perform better when they get at least nine hours of sleep” said Christian Lawrence, a New Tech student. “The board of education requested a shift in school start times to better accounts for sleep habits of students at different ages” (again, DPS website claims).
The Spanish teacher Mr. Rodriguez stated, “the school changes this year is better because students don’t get the amount of sleep that they need and it’s better for student to focus and learn.” Mr. Cuevas, another Spanish teacher, stated that with staff and students with jobs out of school [the time change] made it difficult for them to go to places since there is traffic. Also, staff members with kids have a hard time getting organized and situated with school and their second jobs.
Shannon interviewed some students of Hillside and the majority of the students said the time change has its pros and cons. When asked how the times change affected student lives, Nijee Brown who is a senior, said that it has taken a bad turn on him. Daniela Guzman says her little brother now gets home before her. Daniela is very upset, along with her parents, because they now have to rearrange their schedules. Ms .Reddish, the school's receptionist, said that the time changes is perfect because this the regular time that everybody including herself gets ups. She also stated that its difficult with the traffic if you have two jobs and have kids that go to school. The janitor, Mr. George, also agrees about all of the traffic because of the schools releasing their kids at the same time. He thinks that the changes are good and that he and his staff get to clean the school more because they have more time in the mornings. He gets to rest more instead of waking up at 4:30 to open the school.
So far, we have not yet seen the statistics that will show a growth in student performance. But as a team, we want it to go back because we feel we still get the same amount of sleep. In fact, the busses are getting to school later and later and we aren’t able to make it to first period on time.
