Junior privilege at Masco is missing the authorization to leave during last-block study halls. The school administration has made a huge blunder by omitting this.
As someone with a last-block study hall on Mondays and Thursdays, I often sit around, bored. Not having any work left to do makes the study hall useless, and all I want to do is leave, yet I am not allowed to. A study hall has no impact on grades. It is an inconsequential period that should not be important to attendance. This is why junior privilege must extend to the ability to leave during last-block study halls.
The traffic in the parking lot can get atrocious at the end of the day as everyone is trying to leave at the same time, and the buses are also taking up space. Juniors with parking passes could leave before the end of the day, allowing for less traffic buildup during and after dismissal. I have seen how bad the traffic gets from my bus every day: people waiting for five to ten minutes just to pull out of their parking spaces and get in the line to leave, a line that sometimes stretches the entire length of the parking lot. It stresses me out just watching it. The difference in cars of juniors who leave during study hall can make the parking lot that much less stressful for those who are leaving at dismissal. These are mostly new drivers, and parking is one of the most stressful tasks for newcomers, especially with the added burden of traffic. According to the CDC, teen drivers are far more likely to fail to recognize danger and to make crucial errors leading to an accident. This risk can be drastically lowered by decreasing the number of cars in the parking lot by 2:15.
The school administration says that a study hall’s purpose is for studying and academic work that a student can do outside of their regular classes. However, since other teachers likely have a class during students’ study halls, the student cannot go and ask them for help or anything of the sort. The student is locked, effectively confining them to the room that they are in. In this way, many students may be more comfortable studying and completing work at home, where they can relax. So, in many cases, the study hall is obsolete.
Some potential solutions are that juniors are allowed to leave during any last-block study halls or that juniors are allowed to leave during a limited number of study halls, maybe once per week or twice per month. Not only would this relieve the stress of the parking lot, but it would also decrease the risk of an accident during dismissal, and give students the opportunity to get their work done in a space where they feel more comfortable.
Is the school administration truly committed to giving students a comfortable and productive learning environment like it says it is? If they are, they should make this a reality.