The Pini
n
President William McKinley High School Vol. 91 No. 4
McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
February 2013
School extends to seven periods More classes means more chances by Anthony Lee Next year, students will gain an additional school period, a transition from six to seven classes. Ron Okamura, McKinley High School’s principal, said the legislature is requiring public schools to have longer school days and he thinks a more efficient way to do this is to add more periods. The legislature plans to steadily increase school instructional time. This is no surprise considering the state of Hawaii has one of the shortest and fewest school days. This seventh period will also allow more time for teachers to plan together. Starting with the class of 2009, the state’s graduation requirement was raised from 22 to 24 credits. With McKinley’s current schedule, students must pass every class to graduate. Sometimes students failing difficult classes do not have the money or time out of school to make up the credit. Some cannot handle the workload of picking up a class from a previous year and adding to their current year’s classes. By adding an additional period, the students might still graduate, even with failed classes. For students keeping up with their work, more periods means additional electives. This allows more students to join academies and pathways to choose from for additional electives, which can be found in the McKinley Career and Pathway Booklet. These different career and interest
paths will help students have a better idea of their future, whether it be finding a new life hobby or learning life skills. Okamura said more electives also lets students in band and orchestra to take additional electives. Shayna Fujimoto (11), a band student, wishes that she had seven periods when she was a freshman. “Because one [period] was devoted to band, I couldn’t take other courses, such as foreign language. Because I planned to stay in band for all four years, that left me with no other elective during freshman and sophomore years.” This new bell schedule brings up all sorts of opinions. Winny Chen (11) said, “[This new bell schedule change means] more electives to try out for those who are on time to graduate and another class for students to catch up on their credit for their required courses.” “Thinking that this bell schedule will give more opportunities to fail, is bad thinking,” said Okamura. “These are the opportunities to pass, not fail.” He said that not knowing what to do past high school besides “college” is a problem among high school students and they need to explore their options in high school.
Check out Jinling Yan’s video in opposition of the schedule change at myhsj.org/ pinion RS 13-0440