Student Opinions on FLEX

By Joshua Choe, Features Editor

With every even block period comes FLEX time; essentially a free period for students to go to a classroom to do work, get help from a teacher, or make up a test accordingly. Or so that is what FLEX is described as. However, with the majority of students spending their time in FLEX not doing what FLEX is intended to do, this raises the question: is FLEX time really necessary? Should changes be made to it, or should it be rid of entirely?

In theory, FLEX time is a great idea. Students are able to use this time to go get help in their classes and makeup any work that they need. However, from a Junior perspective and from personal experience, most students treat this time as a mini hangout for the hour of time it occupies. Students fock together in friend groups to classrooms to, in the end, accomplish absolutely nothing. Of course, this isn’t the habit of all the student body. There are some students that do actually use this time productively, many could argue that they could simply be doing it at home, where the rest of us would much prefer to be. The general opinion, which includes myself, is simply to get rid of FLEX. Another approach is to convert one FLEX into ofce hours, at the very least. This would mean having it after school, whilst the other FLEX is done as normal once per week instead. By reducing the amount of time wasted and time spent at school, everyone serves to beneft. Students are still able to get what they need by going to the ofce hours that their teacher ofers, while teachers can still help accordingly. All in all, everyone would get a break. And of course, the students that don’t need FLEX at all, including myself, can simply use the wasted time to be, again, put into other more productive uses. Some students have jobs, extracurriculars, or sports after school that they could prepare for with extra free time. Personally, I could defnitely beneft from the extra time to do the assigned work at home, on better internet, or prepare for work at my job after school without having to rush. As many students can strongly agree with me, the FLEX system needs a change.