Stair Masters: Students Get Daily Workouts Dashing to Class
More Time Needed: Sophomore Journalism 2 student Jordan Tremmel is promoting more time between classes so students in the city’s biggest high school don’t have to stress so much to get to class on time.
Did you know that I’m not on the track team but have to run every day just to make it on time to my classes? Running up 8 flights of stairs to make sure you aren’t late to each class is absurd. Waiting for the 10-year-old elevator filled with several hundred pound students takes forever. Here’s what I think: The students need at least 10 minutes to get to class.
North Atlanta is a big school with 11 floors and filled with 2,300 students. For all of us to get to class in 8 minutes is not practical. The students demand action. If I am two minutes late to class because the elevator doesn’t run as fast as it used to back in the day, it is not my fault. Some students have health issues where they physically cannot walk up the stairs should be taken into consideration. Many kids have their schedule planned out so that they have to go from the gym to 11 and are still not excused.
Students also need time to use the bathroom. The stalls are filled with students doing who knows what and you need to go to the other bathrooms takes up valuable time. Also when none of the stalls have no toilet paper is something out of our control. All of these things take time and more than eight minutes. Then when the teachers get mad at you for asking to go to the bathroom during class is not fair. Student behavior is another big issue. With the some students horseplaying in the halls slows, everything down.
As well as passing period times needing to be longer, there’s also a need for a longer lunch. The time it takes to walk down to lunch or elevator also takes about five minutes there for our 20-minute-long short lunch has now become 15 minutes. Then with kids who need to microwave their food it takes away even more of their time. Then our school gives us three minutes after lunch to get back to class.
To be sure, time is a big issue in North Atlanta. How about this? Maybe start school earlier at 8:15 instead of 8:45. Yeah: We would have to get here earlier but maybe with a little more time in the schedule we won’t have to continue being sprinting track stars just to get to class on time.
