Plus Period, a Negative Use of Time

Plus Period, a program which is said to help the students in academics. The basic plan is this, take out 10 minutes out of each class, put them together into a 30 minute block before lunch. This block is called Plus Period. If you are missing an ESA, a test, quiz, or outright failing (oops, I forgot that the F word crushes esteem of students, lets call it a "No Mark" to be nicer). If you are slated in Plus Period, which is checked every two weeks (hence a new cycle of two weeks). If you have plus for any period, you are in plus for the whole cycle. The broken logic here is Plus Periods in Math, Language Arts, PE, and Band wont help student A finish a Physics test he was sick for, due to you can only take the test in the assigned class. This means that 9 out of the 10 (since there are 5 days a week, and 1 plus period a day on average) Plus Periods are wasted in time.

The Plus Period system claims that this time is to help students finish their homework. Its called homework for a reason, its easy enough to be done at home. If a student cannot finish it, he should stop playing World of Warcraft and actually do homework. This however is an generalization, yet I do believe that 98% of the students are capable of this.

The next point Plus Period advocates bring is the ability to finish tests and ESA's because the students complain there is no time. They seem to have forgotten lunch, before school and after school. These leave a two hour window to get the test/ESA done each day, amounting to 20 hours a week. That is much more time to finish the test than the 5 hours that Plus Period claims to give in the same amount of time, yet is tripped by the obstacle of many teachers only wanting the student to take the test in his or her plus period. This chops off the 5 hours and 30 minutes and leaves only a sparse 30 minutes every two weeks to finish this test.

I myself have experienced this system and its problems. I was in Plus Period for two weeks only to finish a short test that I finished in twenty minutes. Why could I have not done this after school or during my usual lunch?, I have no answer because I could have, its my responsibility to do the tests or ESA's that I missed. After finishing this test, I believed i was out of Plus Period. I found myself the next week hoping for no Plus Period, only to learn that I was. I soon inquired Mr. Taylor, who said he could give no information on it. After that, I inquired Mr. Hurrianko, who looked it up and notified me of a NM in Mr. Clarions Physics 1, which put the dreaded "P" of Plus Period by my name. After lunch, I then asked Mr. Clarion of this ordeal and he looked into his grade program, and strangely told me I was passing the class with a B and there was no "P" by my name. So then I went back to Mr. Hurrianko and asked him if he was sure he saw I was in Plus, he checked it again, and to his surprise there was no P. He said there was one there an hour ago, but had disappeared. I will see after Spring Break if I am still in Plus Period after this "glitch" in the system, I will be greatly disappointed at the school.

I personally believe that the Plus Period system is a dangerous system, it teaches students to rely on a system to help them pass classes. They will learn that does not really work in the real world. On top of that, the system used to assign students to it is broken, or is missing some try...catch lines in the code somewhere. If the school continues to use this, I do not think that they will see success with this quickly built, poorly planned system with very loose logic. I believe that students, not the school, should do their work and learning, schools are supposed to present and guide, were going to become adults once were thrust into the real world. This is not elementary school anymore.


Rocklin High School Homepage: http://rhs.rocklin.k12.ca.us/
Plus Period Cycle Dates: http://rhs.rocklin.k12.ca.us/plus/plus-schedule.htm