Many students complain about the current study hall policies and practices as they feel they are too restrictive. Finding a solution to the problems, however, is a difficult task for administrators who must balance what students deem fair with what the district and State regulators deem safe.
Frequently students find that the most common places to report to study halls, such as the cafeteria and media center, make it difficult to get work done.
“The media center has these tiny desks, some of which are broken, where you can barely fit your computer, so doing homework that requires writing by hand is very difficult, especially with the dim lighting,” junior Gabriela Friel said. “In the cafeteria, there are always what feels like hundreds of people there, so it is hard to get anything done when you can hear people screaming in the background.”
Nevertheless, some believe that a louder volume in these locations shouldn’t be regulated because socialization during the school day is important for students.
“More often I see students socializing instead of studying, which I think is okay because students may feel that they need some unstructured time to hang out with their friends and decompress,” study hall supervisor and WHS building substitute Matthew Ferguson said.
The study hall system also has to help with coverage for absent teachers. WHS is different from other schools as it does not hire substitutes for every absent teacher; instead it only has one permanent building substitute who needs the space in the cafeteria or media center to be able to supervise several classes at once.
“It becomes a question of ‘What is the best option of no good options?’ We could divide everyone up into classrooms, but we don’t have the faculty to supervise that,” assistant principal Susan Bairstow said. “We use study halls to make sure all of our students are accounted for and there’s an adult supervising them.”
Many students argue that they should be allowed to spend study halls in the library or the science wing’s lobby, but restrictions prevent them from doing so. The science wing is not currently supervised by a teacher and at times student behavior there has become disruptive to nearby classrooms. The current limit of five students per study hall being allowed to go to the library is also intended to ensure appropriate supervision along with avoiding overcrowding, however, this limit is flexible as necessary.
Another issue students find frustrating is the requirement to obtain a pass to leave a study hall. Between the limited passes available and the time it takes to sign in and out, some students argue that it is not worth the time to try to go elsewhere, even when doing so might be optimal.
“I’ve had to work in the cafeteria, which is disruptive because I wasn’t able to get a pass,” junior Anna Sumsion said. “It’s also a hassle to get and return passes.
Administrators recognize this issue, and hope to evolve the pass system using technology.
“The passes are a broken system. I would love to discuss it. A lot of these systems are ones that we inherited from before I was here,” principal Paul Peri said. “Is there a better system? In this tech world, there has to be one.”
Study hall attendance is not applicable to seniors who have open campus as the increase in freedoms from freshman to senior year is a key progression in preparing students for living on their own in college.
“We feel that there is an opportunity to extend a little bit more freedom to a senior class,” Peri said. “It’s their last year in a public school system, they’ve put in their time, followed the rules, and are now about to go live on their own, so we will have an extended level of trust.”
Other schools have different policies that many students at WHS would like to see implemented. At Newton North High School, freshmen are required to be in study halls during free periods, while sophomores, juniors, and seniors have open campus. At Natick High School, juniors and seniors have open campus. These schools’ nearby town centers do contribute to their policies, however, as it means that students can walk rather than drive. Given the parking lot limitations and the legal restrictions on new teen drivers’ transporting other teens, administrators at WHS have different issues to consider when it comes to open campus.
Administrators have brainstormed different ways to improve the study hall policies and may utilize these other ways of conducting study halls if there is a need for them. While changing these policies will not happen this year, administrators welcome student opinion and ideas.
“We are a work in progress, and we are trying to figure out a better process,” Bairstow said. “This is just what we have, and we are certainly open to making shifts as we see necessary; for teachers who don’t want to sign all of these passes and for students who don’t want to get all of these passes, we understand all of those things.”