It’s common to see students have a free period in their schedule instead of a standard class. Whether it be teacher’s assistant (TA) periods or senior opens, the value and need for free periods is up for debate. While free periods can be helpful for some students, the ease at which students take them has become an issue at MHS.
As more students take summer classes at community colleges and accelerated classes to earn more course credits, they are able to free their schedules in their junior year to possibly take free periods in the form of TA periods. It is normal for juniors to have an empty slot in their schedule but still meet the requirements to graduate. However, students taking free periods actively decreases the amount of people that take the large variety of elective courses that exist at MHS. Classes such as French IV or higher levels of Korean aren’t offered on this campus due to the lack of student enrollment.
Taking TA periods and senior opens also present a less rigorous schedule, which may affect college decisions. Instead, if you take more classes, especially ones that relate to your desired major, it may present a better application for colleges as a whole, showing further enthusiasm and academic interest for certain subjects. Of course, taking these courses can also benefit you directly, allowing you to learn additional skills or subjects, which can benefit you in your future education.
An alternative to TA periods for seniors is the senior open, which is only restricted to the first and last periods of a senior’s schedule. With 296 total seniors taking a senior open this semester, according to staff secretary Stacey Ryan, it allows more than a third of all seniors to attend school for only five periods. That means that there are 296 less potential students that can take electives or other optional classes, which could end up limiting our school’s wide catalog of courses in the future, as more classes are taken out.
Additionally, while TAs are undoubtedly helpful to teachers, and sometimes even crucial, there is still a surplus of students taking TA periods. For some teachers, they end up not utilizing their TAs at all, which makes it somewhat pointless. Due to the oversupply of prospective TAs and little demand from teachers, many students are still looking for TA slots later into the semester until they find a random teacher willing to take them in or decide to help out at the cafeteria. This issue could be fixed with more regulations, such as only allowing seniors to take TA periods.
The large number of students that are allowed to take free periods, whether it be a TA period or an open period, presents many glaring issues. It would be in the school’s best interest to make senior opens unavailable altogether while keeping TA periods less accessible by restricting students from lower grade levels from taking them, and saving them for the seniors. Instead, the school should encourage students to take classes from the large pool of classes that are available at MHS, which would be more beneficial to them in the long run.