A High School Student's Thoughts on the New Schedule

This letter was sent to Scarsdale10583.com by Mira HIgh, a freshman at Scarsdale High School:

"I am a freshman at Scarsdale High School and like many other students, I am concerned about the extra seventy-five minutes that will be added to the school week starting in September. It is said that each class will be extended by two minutes in order to give students more class time to work on assignments and with teachers. I believe that this will prove ineffective because many teachers dismiss class a few minutes early anyway and two minutes are not long enough to get much work done. This also isn't enough time to speak with a teacher because there is usually a line of students waiting to speak with them and two minutes would allow for only one or two students to actually meet with them.

Instead, this time could be split into two extra periods a week and be used for supervised study sessions where a small group of students can work on homework or class projects together. Or students can meet with teachers during this period for extra help. This could also be a great opportunity to introduce new classes that are hands-on and are not currently offered at the high school, such as, cooking, home economics, woodworking, and metalworking classes. I believe that these hands-on classes are more beneficial to students than an extra two minutes per class that wouldn't be properly utilized anyway."