By Maysen Marolda
Staff Writer
Implementing Midway Day during Office Hours will be beneficial for students as they will be able to express themselves without losing a full day of school.
As opposed to one day out of the school year for students to express their creativity, Costa administration plans on encouraging students to form their own classes and present them during Office Hour days, throughout the school year, starting the week of Feb. 29 through bulletin announcements. This plan will allow even more students to have the opportunity to instruct classes on their hobbies and to show off their individual talents than they would be able to during Midway Day.
According to Principal Dr. Ben Dale, one of the main reasons he believes Midway Day should be replaced with student-run courses during Office Hours is because students will already be on campus so there will be a larger number of students attending the classes. This will be advantageous for the entire student body because more students will be able to experience the talents of their fellow classmates as a result of more allotted time for student-run classes offered consistently throughout the year.
Having student-run courses during Office hours will additionally help Costa with time efficiency. Especially due to the recent bomb threats and with the upcoming Advanced Placement tests, the school should take advantage of all available class time, rather than sacrificing an entire day for student-run courses. These courses are beneficial for Costa as a whole, but not at the expense of valuable class time that is already lost due to the consistent Office Hours schedule.
The administration wanted to stray away from having these classes just once a year, but rather, having it be an ongoing part of Costa’s culture of creativity, Dale said. According to Spanish teacher Edward Frigola, Costa students need more opportunities to elicit their creativity on campus throughout the year. As a result, frequent creative classes rather than just one per year will be a positive outlet to ensure that students have opportunities to express themselves and escape from abundant amounts of schoolwork.
Furthermore, the administration wants the students to be valued for their personal interests; it wants to celebrate the talents and the skills the kids possess that never get celebrated. However, allowing students to teach their individual talents during Office Hours will ideally allow students to utilize the time to expand their creativity weekly. According to Vice Principal Deborah Hofreiter, students often get stressed over their rigorous classes and do not take time to let loose. Therefore, this implementation will be valuable for everyone.
The original intention of Office Hours was to allow students to speak with their teachers, make-up tests and deal with other academic needs, meaning that there is a chance that the student-teachers will not receive the attendance rate that they had hoped, Dale said. However, utilizing Office Hours is the best solution for students to be able to express themselves more frequently throughout the year without compromising valuable class time.
With the proposed plan of changing Midway Day to Office Hours, administration hopes to give students the option to either take or run courses during Office Hours that will allot more consistent, flexible opportunities to express themselves.
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