Rule Change at UHS?
People at UHS have been talking endlessly talking about the changes said to be made next year to things like lunch, 8th hour, and more.
Students have even taken petitions to UHS Principal Matthew Stark. Stark has viewed them openly and listened to the student body.
“Some of the changes I put out there a long time ago but haven’t really been brought up until after registration. I think that’s when it became real to the kids and next week I’ll be in all of the lunches at a table just taking questions and comments from students. Some changes are open for discussion about how things work and those things have been modified because of students’ opinions. I’ve talked to the PSA and the staff, and now it’s opening up more to the students. I’ve heard a lot of rumors and I think people believe a lot of rumors and that’s what a lot of the problem is.”
“So one of the changes is homeroom, a short time at the very beginning of the day where we could take care of announcements, or if a bus is late, and some kids asked,’ well what if people just skipped that period?” There would be consequences for skipping that like anything else. And the purpose of that is to make a connection to a staff member through the 4 years you’re here.”
Early release has also been very talked about among the students, and here is what Stark had to say. “There would be an application for no 8th hour, and it would not be just granted. You should take an 8th hour if there isn’t a reason not to. We’re a school, why should we allow the release of students early if that’s not going to impact them?”
“The next idea is being in good standing. We’re working on the details but if you’ve missed 23 days of school why would we say it that it’s okay for you to have off campus lunch? You’re behind academically and we should have some supports in place to help you catch up. And one of the great recommendations for in good standing was that we run it like we run eligibility, once a week, so then it wouldn’t be permanent. You could be eligible to leave one week, then not eligible the next, and so on.”
Students have been talking about 6th hour lunch and what’s going to happen with that, Stark cleared that up. “There are some good things that happen with 6th hour, juniors and seniors go to AP art studio for extra help on that. Another good thing that happens is Mr. Foleys’ AP US class, as an example. They do a great job of meting during that period to do things. And we don’t want to disrupt that. But let’s talk about some other things that happen with junior and senior lunch being 6th hour. Let’s say you want to take a class and it conflicts with another class that you have, but I could offer it 6th hour and you could take both classes that you want. You’d have lunch at a different time, but take academically both classes you want. Shouldn’t we do that as a school? Should we be so rigid with 6th hour open lunch that we can’t offer any 6th hour junior and senior level classes? When people have to choose between two classes they really want to take, that doesn’t make sense to me. I know. People want to go to open lunch together; I get it, but it is more important than their academics and what we’re trying to do academically?”
“Students have asked that we look at the dress code policy, or things like the food program and the cell phone policy. And we’re looking at all of those things because students have expressed that they want them changed. We can’t promise anything, but we can take what they say into consideration.”
Stark cares about student opinion, and if you actually listen to his reasoning why he’s doing what he’s doing, you’d know that. And next time, don’t believe everything you hear
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