Over the last few years, Stockbridge has introduced a new system for the professional development days. In years past, students had “late start” Thursdays in which they would arrive at school after 10:30 in the morning. Recently, staff have implemented “half days” in which the students get out of school at around the same time they would if they were to start on a Thursday late start day.
Since the school has hired Assistant Principal Derek Douglas, he has advocated for a majority of these half days to be spent as buddy days. 12th grade students are paired with 9th grade students, 11th grade students are paired with 8th grade students and 10th grade students are paired with 7th grade students. The system is supposed to bring mentors and mentees together in order to form a culture of connectedness at our school. However good these intentions may be, they are unfortunately falling flat due to a lack of interest from the student body.
At the beginning of the school year students are placed into a classroom where themselves and their buddies meet on each non-academic half day. On these days mentors and mentees are supposed to work with eachother and the rest of their class to complete a wide variety of activities, from creating family crests to school-wide Mario Kart races.
Although buddies are supposed to be working with each other on the task at hand, we feel that all of the students in the classroom don’t work on the task at hand with their buddies. Instead, they are clinging to their previous friends placed in the same class as them. We believe this is the opposite of the culture trying to be added. Instead of connectedness, we are fostering comfort.
In addition, we see a great number of upperclassmen skipping the half days which leads to mentees being left without an older buddy on a day that is dedicated towards bridging the older/younger gap and creating an environment of connection. Some mentors and mentees have even admitted they don’t even know who their buddy is because the only day we spend with our buddy is on the half days. These students are boasting about their apathy instead of being ashamed of it. It almost appears to be a competition to see who can skip the most half days. This lack of care, attention and participation takes away from the connectedness strived for. When half days first started, Douglas hoped for the buddies to become friends and to even exchange numbers, but how can they even be close to friends if they don’t even know each other’s names?
Furthermore, Douglas stated that drug abuse, racism and school violence has decreased since the half days have started. However, we feel that we haven’t seen a huge difference in these topics because of half days. Although the statistics may support Douglas’s claims, these stats are simply based on the amount of office referrals, not the amount of students partaking in these actions. The bathrooms still reek of artificial cotton candy, racial slurs are still thrown throughout the hallways and students may not be physically fighting, but are verbally fighting.
Due to these factors, the general view towards half days has been nothing short of apathetic. To combat this, we propose that students use their voice. Both Douglas and the teachers union understand that there may be negative views towards half days and are open to suggestions. If you would like to make a suggestion regarding the half days, feel free to respectfully email Douglas. When Douglas requests students fill out a questionnaire, please submit it. Douglas is open to changing the times of the half days and possibly even combining half days to have full days off.
