Q2 Editorial Project
Period 6
Post your group's editorial as a Comment replying to this post. Be sure you are posting the COMPLETE editorial; each group may only submit one.Include a title and all group members' names.
To be considered on time, you must post by 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 21.
TEST POST
ReplyDeleteThe lateness policy is a necessary feature of the Wilson Charter School’s Code of Conduct. In a perfect world, everyone’s alarm clocks would work and the city buses would never run late, but the fact remains that people need to be responsible for their own success, and part of being successful is being on time. In addition to preparing students for the expectations of the professional world, serving a detention for being late reminds students of their mistake and will hopefully inspire them to come to school on time. It is true that some students travel from far away to reach our school because their neighborhood school is unsafe. While this is unfortunate, these students simply need to set their alarm clocks a bit earlier.
First, society judges people on their ability to meet the standards of professionalism, which include being on time and prepared for their job. Imagine a lawyer being an hour late to defend his client in court or a surgeon two hours late to perform a critical operation. According to Leon Daniels, the owner and manager of a local bank, workers “are fired if they are consistently late to perform their professional duties.” He agrees that “since it is a school’s job to prepare students for the working world, schools must hold students accountable for arriving on time.” Mr. Daniels shows how essential it is for schools to hold students to a high standard.
To that end, students must be punished if they arrive even one minute past the beginning of the school day. Some people argue that other schools provide a “grace period” of five minutes, but late is late. All a grace period does is make people think being minimally late acceptable. It does not matter if a student is five minutes or 45 minutes late. Students who are already late to school would be even later if 8:05 became their goal rather than 8:00.
Next, when a student receives a detention for being tardy, it serves as a warning not to repeat this infraction. Spending an afternoon in the detention room causes students to miss out on opportunities for extra help from teachers and prevents them from participating in extracurricular activities. If the student fails to learn the lesson taught by the detention, they will fall behind in school. Only beginning to come to school on time will allow the student to get good grades and add activities to their resume, which they need to be accepted to college.
This kind of policy has its basis in the American justice system, which punishes citizens for crimes committed. Although the late student is not committing a crime, they are hurting their education and taking resources from the school, because it takes a lot of time for the lobby monitor to write late passes and detention slips. This can be compared to the criminal who drains society’s resources by causing police officers to have to patrol the streets and public defenders to waste tax dollars in court on guilty people.
Finally, it is true that some students live in neighborhoods that are somewhat dangerous in the early morning hours. The student knew the school hours when signing up to attend Wilson Charter, however, and if they thought they would not be safe on their trip to school, they should have applied to a closer school. There is no record that any Wilson student being attacked on their way to school in the morning hours. Given the number of students who get to school on time, it seems it is the students’ laziness, not their neighborhood, to blame for their tardiness.
TEST POST #2
ReplyDeleteThe lateness policy is a necessary feature of the Wilson Charter School’s Code of Conduct. In a perfect world, everyone’s alarm clocks would work and the city buses would never run late, but the fact remains that people need to be responsible for their own success, and part of being successful is being on time. In addition to preparing students for the expectations of the professional world, serving a detention for being late reminds students of their mistake and will hopefully inspire them to come to school on time. It is true that some students travel from far away to reach our school because their neighborhood school is unsafe. While this is unfortunate, these students simply need to set their alarm clocks a bit earlier.
First, society judges people on their ability to meet the standards of professionalism, which include being on time and prepared for their job. Imagine a lawyer being an hour late to defend his client in court or a surgeon two hours late to perform a critical operation. According to Leon Daniels, the owner and manager of a local bank, workers “are fired if they are consistently late to perform their professional duties.” He agrees that “since it is a school’s job to prepare students for the working world, schools must hold students accountable for arriving on time.” Mr. Daniels shows how essential it is for schools to hold students to a high standard.
To that end, students must be punished if they arrive even one minute past the beginning of the school day. Some people argue that other schools provide a “grace period” of five minutes, but late is late. All a grace period does is make people think being minimally late acceptable. It does not matter if a student is five minutes or 45 minutes late. Students who are already late to school would be even later if 8:05 became their goal rather than 8:00.
Next, when a student receives a detention for being tardy, it serves as a warning not to repeat this infraction. Spending an afternoon in the detention room causes students to miss out on opportunities for extra help from teachers and prevents them from participating in extracurricular activities. If the student fails to learn the lesson taught by the detention, they will fall behind in school. Only beginning to come to school on time will allow the student to get good grades and add activities to their resume, which they need to be accepted to college.
This kind of policy has its basis in the American justice system, which punishes citizens for crimes committed. Although the late student is not committing a crime, they are hurting their education and taking resources from the school, because it takes a lot of time for the lobby monitor to write late passes and detention slips. This can be compared to the criminal who drains society’s resources by causing police officers to have to patrol the streets and public defenders to waste tax dollars in court on guilty people.
Finally, it is true that some students live in neighborhoods that are somewhat dangerous in the early morning hours. The student knew the school hours when signing up to attend Wilson Charter, however, and if they thought they would not be safe on their trip to school, they should have applied to a closer school. There is no record that any Wilson student being attacked on their way to school in the morning hours. Given the number of students who get to school on time, it seems it is the students’ laziness, not their neighborhood, to blame for their tardiness.
Finally, it is true that some students live in neighborhoods that are somewhat dangerous in the early morning hours. The student knew the school hours when signing up to attend Wilson Charter, however, and if they thought they would not be safe on their trip to school, they should have applied to a closer school. There is no record that any Wilson student being attacked on their way to school in the morning hours. Given the number of students who get to school on time, it seems it is the students’ laziness, not their neighborhood, to blame for their tardiness.
Food Takes Time
ReplyDeleteIt is a disgrace that teachers will not let students eat in class. I know teachers hear students say "I'm hungry" and the other students agree "me too". There should always be an opportunity to eat in class, not just in homeroom for thirteen minutes because that is not enough time, some people eat slow.
This situation is unacceptable because lunch is not long enough. We are grateful for having the privilege to go out and choose what we can eat, but we can’t enjoy it as much without having enough time to eat. This leads us to eating in class after lunch. The reason we don’t have time is because places are full or it takes too long for our orders to come out. On top of that, transportation to the places takes even longer. We don’t necessarily have to eat our whole lunch in class but we would need to finish it instead of throwing it away and wasting money. This is why we need to finish food in class.
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ReplyDeleteSecond reason this rule needs to change is because food helps students focus more in class. One can see that majority of students do stay awake during class while having lunch to eat and also get their classwork complete. According to one student named Danielle Williams “ If you don't eat you wont have energy to stay awake while in class and more likely to fall asleep.” This situation is unacceptable because students cannot obtain the proper energy they need in order to be awake in class to complete their work and pay attention to the lesson that is being given to them. This would lead to more students falling asleep in class not paying attention and cause most of them to be off task during that class period.This interview shows that the school itself should allow students to eat during class long as they are focused and making sure all of their work is done. In the future the school needs to do a much better job in order to help these students be aware and more engaged in class by allowing them to eat in class to have energy.
One reason that students should be allowed to eat in class is because we don't have enough time to eat breakfast at home. If you are in class with an empty stomach you may not want to focus on the lesson that the teacher is teaching. Us, as students have to wake up early to come to school and if you want to arrive to school on time, eating breakfast might not be a option. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it gives you energy.
Another reason students should be able to eat food in class is because of health issues. People who have diabetes have to eat 6 small meals a day. If a diabetic student can't eat all 6 meals they could go into diabetic shock and would have to go to the hospital. Not eating in class is major risk free diabetic students. Freire charter school says they want to keep the school safe so why are we not allowed to eat in class? People who have health problems might not want to come to Freire if they knew some of the rules.
In some cases people might disagree with what we are saying. It could be argued that it's distracting to eat in class because the students will not pay attention to the teacher, they are more focused on the food. Some may say that if you eat in class you will see mice and insects crawling or running in the classrooms. A final counter argument is who makes a mess in the classrooms. If you drop food in the classroom, it will be crumbs and drinks spill everywhere and the floor will probably be sticky after a drink spills or someone can hurt their self and fall on the floor if not paying attention.
In conclusion, there are reasonable situations where food should be allowed in class. It’s either because students don’t have enough time during lunch, can’t focus without energy of food, we don’t have time for breakfast at home which also affects our focus, or it’s regarding health issues. The school can set some limits to this but, not too much where it affects our focus and needed energy in class. This editorial shows our biggest concern about one of our school’s policies and we give our reasons to allow food in class in hopes of changing it for our school to be more of a home to us.
Amending the Zero Tolerance Policy
ReplyDeleteBy. Iyannah Goudy, LaShay Stevens, Tymir Miller, Elijah Jones
On April 20th, 1999 two students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School with both an 9mm semi-automatic handgun and a riffle. The two shooters have claimed the lives of 15 unarmed students and faculty and injured 24 more victims. Many believe that due to this massacre schools set the ‘zero tolerance policy’ but actually in 1994 the government issued the Gun-Free School Act to prevent the stray of school shootings that was happening prior years. In Today’s society the zero tolerance policies have since expanded its coverage from weapons, now students can get reprimanded for having medications, using self defense tactics, and playing around. There is no excuse for people to be expelled for using self defense tactics in order to protect oneself of being harmed.People carrying medication for their own usage should not be reprimanded. The students who play around in class should the not be expelled because school system is supposed to protect them from the streets are instead of helping them are placing them right on the street. As a result to these ridiculous coverages, the policy should change the repercussions of an infraction to suspension instead of explosion it also should be altered that would make the situation reasonable.
One reason why the zero tolerance should change its results of an infraction of the policy to an suspension is because the usage of medication. Medication is set in place to help protect one's health and life. One example of why the zero tolerance policy should be altered because it is claiming kids lives. 11 year old Phillip Hernandez had a severe asthma attack. Phillip struggle to get to the schools office where he can retrieve his medication. However by the time he reached the office it was too late and he did not survive. It was later revealed that Philip could have survive if the school would have allowed him to carry a mobile inhaler but due to the school’s zero tolerance drug policy it would have been an infraction to the code of conduct. This situation is unacceptable because due to this policy it claimed the life of an 11 year old. This child did not even live a long life to pursue a career. Can you imagine how Ms. Hernandez felt when she loses her baby boy? She felt her heart shattered in a million pieces do to something that could have been avoided if he would have been allowed to carry a mobile inhaler.This is just one reason why the zero tolerance policy should be altered to make the situation more reasonable.
Another reason why the zero tolerance policy should be altered to suspension because the policy is doing more harm than good. A prime example is the schooling dropout statistics due to the policy. In 2006-2007, 31% of Texas students were suspended or expelled for violating the cell phone act in the code of conduct. As of 2010 in North Carolina 30% of suspensions affected African Americans and only 5% for Whites. Baltimore and Georgia school districts are altering the code of conduct by using the results of truancy by staging interventions instead of suspensions. This idea was set to increase the graduation rate both states increase by 20%. According to the statistics it shows the improvement of graduation rates and a decline of dropout rates. This just proves that instead of expelling the students the school system should try to be engage in the students life so the kids can strive to get an education instead of hindering them of their chances.
Lastly the final reason should be altered from explosion to suspension because students could be using self defense tactics and the school systems are portraying them as the suspect instead of the victim. English philosopher once said,“Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life whenever he pleases. What he is describing is a tyrannical governments, which means they can deprive people of their rights in any way they can. This unfortunately is was the School District is doing when they are taking away are right of self defense. It is unfair for the victim who was protecting oneself to be charge for the same crime as the suspect. This problem needs to end because in what world should a victim should be blamed for getting assaulted when the victim tries to protected itself. Due to John Locke who believe in the theory of natural rights, is probably turning in his grave because in a way this is depriving people of their right to self defense and all of Locke’s hard work would have been for nothing.
ReplyDeleteSome might say that the zero tolerance policy helps prepare students for the real world. Supporters will say that if you broke a rule you have to face the consequences. For example you are speeding because you're late the cops are not going to care for your excuses, bottom line you're going get a ticket. However because rules are rules what if a person is wrongfully accused or is getting attacked and using self defense tactics and getting attack, are you still going to use the saying ‘rules are rules?’ No you would not if something like this would have happened to your family you would not care about the rules. Supporters may also say that suspending or expelling a student may insure a safety environment. However did you know in 2013 the American Academy of Pediatrics said that suspending a students are 10 times likely to dropout. I thought schools was set in place to educate the students to be successful instead of becoming another statistic. So by doing this you are hindering the safety of the students because you don't know what neighborhood these students come from. Lastly some may say that this would help protect for any illegal findings in schools such as drugs. However that should be altered because your hindering people's health. It should be altered because it causes death’s that can be preventable. Students should be able to carry mobile medication just in case the nurse is out or the student is unable to reach medical attention.
In conclusion in todays society the zero tolerance policy should be altered its policies to make the infraction reasonable and change the infraction consequences from explosion to suspension. The policy should change because it is doing more harm than good by letting the high school dropout rate to decrease rapidly due to explosion instead of reaching out for moral support. The policy’s drug infraction should be modified in order to fit the situation. For example in Philip's case he had an severe asthma attack which unfortunately caused him to die at the age of 11 because his school did not let him carry his mobile inhaler which could have avoided his death.The zero tolerance is believed by others to hinder your right to self defense. It just says it okay to be a victim, it also shows students rights being denied. I thought we were over this and that is why the Constitution was enlisted. I guess I thought wrong. We as a community can't let this continue because this is why in statistics other countries intelligence wise are always higher than ours is because of stupid policies that should be compromised to help everyone. The community should petition for a change because instead of its true purpose which is to allow safety is promoting violence by making minorities become statistics. Which in reality leaves them dead or in prison. So thats why we should change the zero tolerance policy.
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ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteYOUR MORE AWARE WHEN YOU CARE!
Hamidah Brown, Ronae Singletary, Nasir Debnam
How would you feel if something used in your everyday life was taking from you due to a ring or a simple light flash? That is a main struggle here at Freire Charter High School. The cell phone policy was created by administrators to ensure that students in the school will not use their electronic devices in school or during school hours. If they were heard or seen during class or anywhere in school they would be taken by the teacher and given to the dean.This rule may be one the most ridiculous rules ever made, although it leaves structure and focus in the freire hallways it can also cause tension between a student and teachers relationship.This rule should be changed to only warnings or simply keeping it until the end of class .
A major reason for these changes is because of the safety of the children here at freire becomes endangered when you take away their only communication with their parents outside of school and on the way to school in case of emergency the phone would be needed . Students travel from all over philadelphia and some parts are way more dangerous than others means they are gonna need their phones in case of emergency or in case of a transit problem or if they need their parent for any reason . Freire students also go out for lunch which isn't a safety issue but could become one because of the fact that we are downtown and its always very busy down here . Therefore its necessary for all freire students to have their devices even if they go off in class because of the way they travel and what they do while at school is always a hazard and if a student's phone is taken and put in a closet how will they be able to call for help ?
Another reason this rule is unfair is because they use a rule called the 30 day rule. The 30 day rule is a rule which means after getting your phone room after a few times, they hold it for 30 days and your parent still has to come and get it. This rule is unfair and bad because not only is the phone theirs but his/her parents are still paying the bill on the phone. Not only are they wasting money but the phone is also needed for safety reasons. For example, say if they student lives in a bad neighborhood he/she needs their phone just in case they need to call their parents or 911. People are dying and being kidnapped left and right now days. This is why this rule is unfair.
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ReplyDeleteThey may send an older brother or a friend of the family to come and get it. For example, my 9th grade year I had gotten my phone took the day before break. Not only was my mom at work during the time but no one else was on the power school for anyone to come and get it. So, my mom had to go to work late after break was over to get my phone. Not only was my mom late for work but she also told me she was not doing that again, so I better not get it taking away again.
Someone who may agree to this would most likely say that it would make people not want to get their phone taken. It will make them more aware and cautious of when they will take their phone out and for whatever reason. People may be for this because of the simple fact that it teaches a lesson. If you are in a situation to get your phone taken the first time and get it back, you will be more careful the second time not to get it taken for 30 days and aware that your parents will still have to pay the bill, more than likely you would start to put it in your locker, bookbag or away because you know the consequences after the first offense.
In conclusion, When you you have a phone and your parents give it to you for safety reason, and you use it everyday, nowadays kids my age a phone is their life. Any problems, any assignments any friends. It is all in there! When you get your phone taken it’s like the end of the world. It’s rules are dumb and should have more chances to keep it because a lot of people feel the need to text their parents for personal reasons. Parents don’t have the time to take off work for the simplest things like a phone. When it is taken you should be able to get it back. Academic supporters may tell us it’s a safety issue and or a distraction, But something has to change.
Najah Alexander
ReplyDeleteSasha Widaman
Miles Fields
Destiny Jones
Fight for Whats Right
Zero tolerance is the policy of applying laws or penalties to even minor deterrent. Here in Freire, we have a zero tolerance non-violence policy which states if one is involved in physical or verbal altercations that person who inflicted and or the infringements of a code in order to reinforce its overall importance and to enhance person who retaliates, this policy requires one to pay for their actions. But who’s to say that this is the best policy for the student's Freire Charter School or anyone if it comes with many downfalls.The zero tolerance policy needs revised for several reasons explained below.
The first reason is that the non-zero tolerance policy has its bad side effects. The first problem of having the non-zero tolerance is you can’t defend yourself. That person can’t have use self-defense. Meaning that if that person hit you. You can’t hit that specific person back. Because if you do both people will have to transfer to another school. But from this policy no good has come from out of this.The story about a teen suspended for fighting in self-defense shows why the policy needs to be improved.. A boy named Alejandro Johnson, who was attacked out of nowhere. Alejandro words were,” I was attacked, I was defending myself and I was backed in a corner.” Alejandro Johnson says he was eating his lunch in the cafeteria. When a group of kids came of the streets,walked up to him and started to beat him up.Alejandro said that he had no choice but to defend himself. No one wants to feel defensively because the policy doesn’t allow one to retaliate in a negative way. But when approached in an inappropriate way and feeling threatened who wouldn't want to defend themselves no one just wants to take the loss and thats where selfs defense comes in at.
Furthermore, another reason this rule needs to change is because everyone is entitled to a fair procedure,and have the right to a trial and protection from testifying against ourselves. According in the Fifth Amendment in the English Bill of Rights people are promised their civil rights to tell their side of the story during an altercation. However, this is violated in Freire Charter School. When an altercation occurs in this facility, both parties are immediately suspended, or in worse cases, expelled from the learning environment. This is not justified according to the Fifth Amendment because before a consequences given the people involved in altercation should be able to tell their side of the story. After researching the cause the Freire policy should change because this doesn't really justify the requirements i the fifth amendment.
continued......The third reason this non-violent zero tolerance rule needs to be improved is because this particular rule will not help students that have been kicked out succeed in life. For instance, quarterback Michael Vick was arrested for dog fighting, a wrongful mistake. He was criticized, hated, kicked off the team, and even was put into jail. Doing time in prison made him realize how stupid his actions were. He knew that a simple "sorry" would not cut it, so he later gave $200,000 to the "renovation of the rundown Hunting Park united recreational facility". Michael showed one how a second chance can be a positive way to learn from ones' mistake and turn his life around. Connecting this to the zero tolerance rule, everyone should be given a second chance. One has to to make mistakes to learn from them, which Michael did.
ReplyDeleteThe fourth reason the non violent rule should be improved because in most cases, the rule does not stop students from actually fighting. One can see or have experienced that when someone is about to fight, that person does not immediately think about the rules of the school. Fights usually happen faster than one could see on the outside. The last thing on their mind is the rules, most likely the first thing on their mind is protecting themselves. A former Freire student was asked a few questions about how he got kicked out and what was going through his head at the time. He said, " What was going through my head was not getting hit and protecting myself. I didn't care about that rule to be honest with you." This interview shows that most students worry about protecting themselves more rather than the rules of the school, especially the zero tolerance non-violence rule. If it will not prevent fighting, then what is it preventing?
Many people may agree withe the zero tolerance non-violence policy because it keeps the school safe. A teacher who teaches English at Freire Charter School shared her input on the policy. Ms.Julie said, "One reason a school has a policy like this is to make sure that students are taught in a safe environment." Although this may be a completely understanding and a valid point, it contradicts Freire's values. Freire is a charter school which stands very strongly in its values one of theses values is to give structure and support. Students who attend Freire receive structure and support from teachers who care,invest and encourage them to succeed. Students who may have
found themselves in altercations and had to defend for themselves could have left the student without support and structure. In this particular case the dean would have enforced the zero tolerance non-violence policy that any student who gets into to physical fights may be faced with expulsion. This contradicts the Freire's values because asking students to leave may leave them at risk for not reaching their full potential educational wise and leaving them alone without support.
Ultimately the zero tolerance non-violence policy is basically another way of saying "deal with it" .Students have to deal with feeling or being defenseless when approached inappropriately or when they are physically threatened. This policy is saying deal with there being no help to allow students to succeed with a second chance. Deal with being a straight A student and making one mistake and it possibly changes their life. Although this policy is enforced it does not stop people from disobeying because at the end of the day no one wants to be beaten on and they just having to settle and deal with it just because of the school's policy. For these reasons the zero tolerance policy should to be improved.
Minor Things Over A Write-Up Gone Wrong
ReplyDeleteBy: Ashley Sullivan, Troi Anderson, and Jhamir Rogers
The students at Freire Charter School are tired of the write up policy. The write up policy is not helpful for students at all. When students get written up, they’re getting written up for minor things. Receiving write ups also does not help kids learn to improve their behavior, and they lose learning time when they are kicked out of class. The write up policy needs to be changed or taken away.
Many of todays students agree that no one should get a write-up for minor things. Minor write-ups like coming to class two minutes late happens to many kids because of traffic in the hallways. If teachers would look in the hallways then they would see exactly what causes the trouble of getting to class on time. This is an example of a minor write.Another example is I interviewed Josephine Chukwuani who is a junior at Freire Charter School. I asked her the following questions have you ever received a write-up for something minor? Why? She responded," Yes!! I got a write up for being four minutes later to class because the hallways was so crowded." Then I asked her how she felt when she received the write-up she said," I was so pissed this happened over something so little." The last question I asked her was did you think it was fair you received a write-up for something so minor? She replied," No I did not! Because I was not even 15 minutes late it was only have 4 minutes." Overall, Josephine and many others believe little things like these do not deserve a write-up for it due to the crowd hallways. This goes to show that the write policy is not working for students that go through this everyday.
Write ups are continued to be given out even though they are not effective since people still continue to do the same thing even when they get disciplined. Statics show one out of every five students will continue to act the same way as if they did not receive the write-up. The reason why they act like this because the write-ups are not effective. The student either gets a morning, lunch, or afternoon detention this does not help them to become a better person. As you can see, it is not effective to keep giving students the same write-up as before.
ReplyDeleteThe write up policy is not helpful to students because it makes them miss their education. Write ups are set to discipline students that are making bad decisions. This is a way to put students back on track to the path of being successful. The only thing is that this does not work. I have talked to a student in Freire Charter School. He tells me how he have gotten six write ups in a day. Some of the things he really did not do. He has missed a lot of classwork, homework and even test, not to mention how this is hurting his attendance . Write ups for things he have not even done made is student life difficult. He even has the most write ups in the school. For anyone to get a write up everyday would make you want to change. This just proves that the write up policy does not work. This kept him out of class and not helping him make new decisions or want to do things differently. This means this policy does not help students and its time for a change.
Some might say that the write up policy is a good thing because it teaches students to be responsible, respectful or even teach discipline. Studies show that pressuring change does not work on teenagers. After a certain age they are too old to try to rise them. This leads to no results in a change. The write up policy is supposed to make minor mistakes students do, stop their actions. Instead the students repeat these actions. This just means that the write up policy needs to stop.
Even though the write up policy is a way to punish students for misbehaving, it’s not really helpful or effective. Giving students write ups is a waste a time for teachers as well as students. Teachers have to take time out their day to write students up, and students have to serve an unnecessary detention that won't teach them to change their behavior. Some students get written up almost everyday which means that this write up policy is not really working effectively. Also, when a student gets kicked out of class, they are losing learning time, so how is this beneficial for students? I you’re tired of getting write ups and having to serve detention, I urge you to talk to the school dean about changing the write up policy.
Let Us Elect Our Electives by Essence Hall, Danielle Williams, Donte Strong
ReplyDeleteMany believe that students attending school should be prepared for college at any age. Yet, only select hand picked high schools do a superb job at preparing students for college life. Freire Charter High School is one of those schools. At Freire you are taught and treated like a college student. Freire Charter School is a college preparatory high school, where the student are provided with the necessary classes to prepare for college. However, colleges allow students, in some cases, even freshmen to chose their courses. Freire Charter School does not offer the same advantage. Since the staff wants the students to be college ready, the students should be able to choose a couple of classes that will benefit them. The students at this school are not able to choose what classes they would like to be put in, which is unjust. The availability of electives should be extended, so that the students can choose more classes. This is proven by the change in courses in the next upcoming school year, the opinion of the students attending the school, and the opinions of college school students from different colleges. The students have expressed their lack of interest in certain subjects and it is time to change that.
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The biggest complaint that the school has received from students of various grades is the fact that there are classes that repeat and doubled, especially for the 11th graders. The 11th graders’ course have shifted because of staffing problems, which caused for a repeat of biology for them. Another problem is that since 9th grade, the class of 2016 had to double up with two classes every other year. Mr. Nick, Head of Academics, states that “ some of students come in (9th grade) far behind in math and that the classes are set up so that the students could get the help needed. The reason why that electives are not chosen is because it prepares you for college, the colleges look at you as prepared and for scholarships. There will always be changes to the policy.” This is true although, the student should have a choice on whether or not they want to take this extra class or pursue something else, while still take core classes such as algebra,biology, and english.
DeleteContinue As a result of not having electives offered in Freire, we thought it would be acceptable to question a few students from outside of Freire who are offered electives. When we asked 11th grader, Naim Malik Speaks- Churn, student at Cristlo Ray Catholic High School, he responded, "Electives are necessary for school, because you are able to choose what credits you want to count. Also, they help you learn stuff, and being hands on." I also asked another student, but unlike the previous student, this next student is not being offered electives in their school. 10th grader, Alexis Miller, student at Mathematics Civics and Sciences Charter School, she responded, "I had electives. I will never get the chance, because my high school experience is almost over. All of my friends talk about having fun, or just getting the chance to pick a class or two." Overall, the students who did not have electives offered to them in school, miss out on selecting the extra classes they can take. This limits the students for reaching a certain amount of credits or even extra for their education. Students who are offered electives enjoy elective. They have opportunities to take classes outside of the mandatory curriculum, and enjoy what they learn.
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DeleteAlso, when we asked students at Freire Charter High School how they felt about not being able to pick classes, and being offered electives, they express major concerns. As a student, you are suppose to take in information and enjoy subjects that are being taught. Most students enjoy learning without take elective, but just imagine if electives were offered. How much would students who didn't have them already enjoy classes, and coming to school. Being able to learn more knowledge on a certain topic of your interest makes things generally fun. Freire wants elective, because it will give the students a chance to open up, take in mandatory classes, and have a fun but educational class on the side.
Furthermore, as high school students have very strong opinions regarding this topic, college students take the same stand. When asked, Temple University student Jake W. agree that in order to do well in a certain place, you must have some type of experience in order to succeed. In other words, to know why and how to pick courses in college, it is strongly recommended to do so in high school. It will allow students to be able to know what career to pursue and what subject they can achieve most in. LaSalle student, Marvin M. believes that you do not need to have to choose college courses in high school to know what to do in college. He says that it is an experience that will help you in college. However, he recently became a college dropout due to not knowing what to pursue in his college life. Clearly, it is not a great idea to jump into picking class courses in college rather start in high school. Community College student Edward Z. is in his senior year and was able to choose his classes in high school. He is now achieving at a great level at his college and is satisfied with his courses that he picked. Thus it is evident that allowing students to pick their courses in high school can go a long way.
In conclusion, it is made clear that Freire Charter High School students should be able to choose their electives and class courses. It will get them ready for the college life and make sure they are able to achieve in the course they choose in their future schooling. Not only do college and high school students agree, Freire Charter School is already making plans to change the class course for the upcoming school year. Here it is evident that students picking their own electives in high school will benefit them in the long run.
To conclude, the 75% rule should be lowered or removed due to how much it pressures students and there is not enough time. Even though it may be a college prep school and they want students to do well, some students struggle and barely pass the 75 percentage mark. Once the workload is too much grades drop below passing. Once those grades are dropped pass 75% there is nothing you can do like extra assignments or make up work. This is the reason being why a lot of students must attempt summer school or be retained in their current grade. This is extra credit and more time should be available or the 75% rule should be revoked or lessened.
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