No Modified Days for Zero Period Students

By: Kim Ngai, News editor and Sabrina Syed, Student life editor 

According to numerous studies, teenagers need a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night to function properly. But for many students, six hours a night is a dream come true, and eight hours is simply impossible. Modified days offer some relief in the form of an extra hour of snooze time for all sleep-deprived Barons. That is, all students except those taking a zero period. Isn’t it strange that the students who regularly come to school at seven in the morning still have to come at seven on modified days, too?  

Zero period students have many complaints about modified days. One of the main objections students have with modified days is that it’s not fair for them to have to come two hours early on modified days when they are already coming an hour early on regular days.  

“Zero period is cool and all, but then it has its disadvantages. It’s especially annoying when there is a modified day. I still have to wake up early in morning to go to school and then have to wait a whole hour on the school campus for the next period to start. I wish administration would allow zero period to start later on these days,” say Jose Cisneros (‘10). 

Administration counters with the fact that students take an extra class in the morning by choice.  

Principal Herzfeld says, “Zero period is a privilege – you don’t get modified days. Most students who have a zero period have the privilege of getting out earlier in the afternoon.” 

However, students who have zero through fourth period have another complaint. They not only have to come early on modified days, they get out of school later as well. 

“It’s really unfair for us students who are taking 0 through 4th periods, because we are getting totally gypped for being forced to leave school 20 minutes later than on normal days,” says Elizabeth Keleshian (‘09) 

Herzfeld counters with, “As I said, zero period is a privilege. Coming earlier and getting out later than usual on modified days is part of the package.” 

And while many students who take a zero period get out after fourth period, there are other students who take a zero period to fit in another class into their already loaded schedules.  

Claudia Cheffs (‘09) says, “Zero period was made for students who try to get an extra class into their schedules and take the initiative to get up out of their beds one hour earlier to get to school. On modified days, it’s almost like punishment for these kids to get up two hours earlier than their fellow classmates.”

Students suggest it would be more efficient if teachers met from seven to eight in the morning so zero periods could start at eight on modified days. Cheffs points out, “Why not just begin school one hour later for every student on modified days, instead of making it biased against zero period students? They say sleep should be our number one health priority, but how can we do that, if we can’t even take that to our advantage on the one day we can?” 

However, administration has a reason for not implementing a later meeting time for teachers on modified days.  

“Teachers aren’t contractually required be here until 7:30 in the morning. It would go against their contract to call them in at seven on modified days,” says Herzfeld. 

When asked why there can’t be reverse modified days to compensate for teacher meetings, Herzfeld responded, “Most teachers have other priorities to take care of in the after school and are usually too grouchy to hold meetings.” Grouchy teachers, huh? Kind of like grouchy students who come at seven in the morning even though they only had three hours of sleep the night before?  

It’s true that not all students have a problem with coming at seven on modified days, but even those students have complaints.  

“If they’re going to make us get to school two hours earlier than everyone else, well then they [security] should at least let people leave campus during that hour in between eight to nine am to get breakfast,” complains Brooklyn Paxson (‘10). 

Principal Herzfeld replies, “As soon as a student arrives on campus, they become the school’s responsibility. Students are not allowed to leave campus after zero period on modified days because anything that happens to them while they are off campus is the school’s responsibility.”  

It appears that administration has contractual support ready to fire back at students’ every complaint, and it’s not suprising that this issue may seem like yet another problem with administration. Sadly, Barons, this issue isn’t a problem, because problems have solutions.

It looks like there’s nothing that can be done to alter a teacher’s contract and because of the series of excuses given by Mr. Herzfeld, it seems impossible to fix the problem. So Barons, you’ll just have to deal with the unhealthy amount of sleeping time you’re receiving.