During today’s late start, faculty members herded students who arrived earlier than 9:15am into the upper commons much to the students confusion.
“I thought something had happened in the school,” junior Molly Porfidio said.
Other students enjoyed the late start, yet were taken off guard when they arrived at school and were unable to move past the upper commons.
“I liked the late start because I felt a lot more rested. But it was just kind of confusing when I got to school. We didn’t understand what was going on,” senior Alyssa Yee said.
Senior Melissa Franke said that on a normal day she would get to school about 20 minutes early so today she did the same thing only two hours later.
“I didn’t get why it mattered. It limited what I could accomplish this morning,” Franke said.
According to the staff there is a strong purpose behind keeping students in the upper commons during late starts. This purpose, however, was not clearly communicated to students.
On late start mornings, teachers from around the district come together in Parkway Learning Communities (PLC) to discuss and compare things such as classroom curriculum, achievement, and struggles.
“It’s difficult to get teachers with similar roles together at the same time,” 9th grade assistant principal, Mr. Travis Fast said. “We’re trying to protect this time during 7:30 and 9:15 for teachers. We want to keep the distractions to a minimum.”
But with teachers still in meetings until 9:15 there is a lack of supervision over the many students who arrive early. Permanent substitute teacher, Ms. Betsy Breckenridge, was one of the faculty members assigned to monitor the upper commons.
“Teachers are still in meetings so students can’t be wandering around the halls unsupervised. It’s a liability,” Breckenridge said.
Students did not have to wait in the upper commons on the first late start day, because the faculty had expected students would be sleeping in and would not arrive any earlier than 9:15.
“During the first late start we did not anticipate a need to have everyone in one location,” 11th grade assistant principal, Dr. Carletta Harlan said. “This time we had more information to look at how best we could provide supervision for students so we assigned faculty to monitor and supervise.”
Officer Matthews, who stood outside the doors to direct students into the upper commons, felt the morning went well.
“From what I heard the first late start was somewhat chaotic. This time it was controlled chaos,” Officer Matthews said.
The transition to late starts is a learning process for students as well as staff. Harlan said she plans to add an update on today’s late start to the administrative agenda to better estimate when teachers should be done based on when the buses arrive.
“I hope [the late starts] will be pleasurable and worthwhile,” Harlan said.
