Students face everyday sleep deprivation, stress, and plenty of work to ensure the next day will be full of the same. They have eight total class periods, with a 30-minute action break to get help and/or make up assignments when necessary. At one point, all upperclassmen were able to have an off period, or one or two periods in which they didn’t have a class. Essentially, they gave up one credit in order to have a class period off. However, this has changed: currently, only seniors are allowed to have these off periods.
Off periods are beneficial to students and should not be eliminated.
To begin with, students are incredibly stressed out and need time to get caught up, relax, or just have a particular time each day dedicated to not being busy with something. Tense students don’t tend to do great work – they’re too stressed about other classwork to focus on the class that they’re in. Extracurriculars get students caught up after school, and it’s not uncommon for them to get home well past the end of the school day because of them. This leads to less quality work and next to no sleep while trying to be the best that they can be. Off periods give students an opportunity to finish up their work before going into the day to ensure that their work is quality in all of their classes.
Aside from this, it’s important to take into consideration the way that the schedule is formatted. As of right now, students have 45-minute classes with 5-minute breaks, not including action, for eight periods each day. This gives little to no time during the school day to complete work: all that’s given is a brief, 30-minute Action period and lunch. Whereas with a block schedule students can typically delegate what they’ll spend time on each night and balance, as they have less classes each day, the system used here forces students to try and get work for up to eight classes done each night. Action does help somewhat, but it isn’t nearly enough time to get all or even most of the work done. While it doesn’t make sense to completely reformat a schedule, off periods can alleviate some of the stress students may experience as opposed to making them take another elective they don’t need because they already have the mandatory credits.
Finally, off periods can beneficial to students that aren’t specifically stressed about schoolwork, too. While it is reasonable to make an argument that many students don’t take such rigorous courses that they need extended time to finish coursework, other students have responsibilities to. For example, there are a considerable amount of students that have jobs in order to support themselves, their family, or simply to garner experience. These students need an off period not only to finish work that they may not have had time to finish due to a long work day, but gives them an opportunity to rest as opposed to making them take another class period they don’t have to have. This goes to show that no matter what kind of student someone is, they can always benefit in some way from having an off period.
Students walk around school completely exhausted, strung out, and worried about classwork, simply because there isn’t enough time in a day to get everything done. Allowing students the option to have off periods regardless of class rank can greatly help with time management and work in general. Off periods as a whole can be incredibly beneficial to students, and should definitely be kept in schools.