Morning Announcements have been a fun start to each school day for as long as I’ve attended MVS, at least until this school year. Typically, our Morning Announcements would start at 8:05, right at the beginning of the school day. It gave students a nice, slow wake-up to prepare us for first period. Many students are still drowsy from waking up at this time, so it was nice not having to immediately start the learning process minutes after we entered the building. This year, that has all changed.
MVS Administration has decided that Morning Announcements would be better utilized between first and second period, which has been received with mixed regard from students and staff alike. The idea, as explained by Dr. Munhofen, is that students will be more encouraged to make it to school on time when they run the risk of a tardy on their attendance sheet. Instead of missing club announcements and game results, they would be missing valuable information if they were even a minute too late. This has led to a myriad of issues, as stated by our interviewees.
Astonishingly, not a single person interviewed had positive feelings about the schedule change. It seems as though all parties have been similarly affected by this as well. Students like Owen Guy, Sarah Wiley, and Vrinda Chatterjee had this to say on the situation: “Announcements not being first is terrible…it interrupts the flow of the day” (Owen Guy).
“Instead of chunking my day into blocks, I have to interrupt it” (Vrinda Chatterjee).
“I don’t like it, and I don’t even like them being upstairs. It was better before in the gym” (Sarah Wiley).
While more people were interviewed, their responses widely echoed what these Rams felt was wrong with our system. A potential oversight by the administration is that the previous attendance issue might not have been entirely related to students not feeling like showing up. A student who oversleeps their alarm now faces having to catch up on teacher instruction instead of asking a friend about whether improv club is meeting or not. Even a minute of lost class time is enough to warrant checking in with Ms. McCallum, mandating all students to venture to her office no matter how close they were to being on time. By the time they make it back to their classroom, they’ve missed considerably more class time than they would’ve pre-change. The change not only disrupts the days of students who arrive on time, but it also makes mornings much more stressful for those who struggle to get to school on time.
While it’s important to avoid glossing over the attendance benefits of the schedule change, the administration should also acknowledge the stress they’ve put onto everyone affected by their decision. Whether or not the administration decides to alter certain policies to mitigate damage may be affected by student participation. Discussing the decision with Administrators one-on-one or with a group was how we began phasing out AI art, and a similar tactic may work here. We encourage you to advocate for what you believe in, and work to achieve a better tomorrow for yourself and your classmates.
