Pride time is a designated period for students at Pitman High School to get work done, retake tests, or a study hall. But, for some students, pride time is a waste of time. This article will be fully focused on the pros and cons of pride time.
The Pros: You can get work done for other classes. Some classes are completely silent and are full of students working on projects for other classes. Some teachers even offer reteaches for students who are absent or need to relearn a subject, or just help in general. Study halls are also taking place during this time.
Another helpful feature that comes with pride time is the teachers that allow you to retake tests. This could be for students that are absent and didn’t get the opportunity to study or learn the material, or if you just got a score that you are not happy with.
I asked Elyssa Alcazar, ‘Is pride time something that you look forward to in the day or not? Why?’ She replied, “Yes, because I get all my work done for my classes and get a free afternoon open for sports and activities.” I asked her a follow up question, ‘what do you usually do during pride time?’ “I usually just do work, be on my phone, or read a book.”
The Cons: Classes that most kids want to get help in or study in get fully fairly quickly, and if you don’t sign up in time then you get punished. I think that the punishment system is really bad at schools in general but the punishment for not signing up for a class that you aren’t even registered in seems a little weird.
In addition to the classes filling up quickly, you only have until 9:45am -the day of- to sign up for those classes. I can see how the school would think that ‘oh pride time is a good time for students to catch up.’ But what about the students that are all caught up? Where do they go?
Personally, this is where I think the school messed up. As a student who tends to do all of their work during class time or at home, pride time doesn’t really help me, academically. Now, think about all of the incoming freshmen, and new students overall. This system is very confusing.
The website, “Enriching Students,” is what the school chose to use. The confusing part about the website is how to reschedule classes. Let’s say, you sign up for a class just as a study hall, but then you see that your science teacher assigned a test when you were absent, and you need to take it. How do you reschedule your class? I did eventually figure it out, but most students don’t know how. Most just ask their teacher to ‘flag them.’ That is another part of the system that is a little confusing also. This is when your teacher forces you to go to their class for an extra period of the day, meaning that you don’t have a choice of what classes you get to go to.
In conclusion, students at Pitman High School are either enjoying their Pride Time period, or not.