Opinion: The Problem With Friday School

By: Joey Hudson

With many students skipping class, this year, Tuscarora has implemented “Friday School.” Friday School is given to students caught out of class after the bell has rung, whether that be during the morning bell before 1st block, students going to the bathroom in between blocks, Tusky Time, or students transferring to their next block. While on paper the idea seems that it could help prevent students from skipping or being late, instead, more and more students are finding themselves in Friday School and teachers continually having to excuse their students from it.

Countless students that have been sentenced to Friday School have expressed the same frustration for the reason they were given Friday School. The most common instance that was shared was that students that were given permission by their teachers to go to the bathroom or going to get a drink of water and were seen by monitors who would then take the students to the cafeteria to receive a lecture about “skipping” and be given Friday School. This would then cause teachers to have to contact whoever is in charge of Friday School and excuse their students from it, which could lead to the possibility of students being mixed up on who is or who isn’t supposed to be in Friday School.

This could then be related to E-Hall passes. As we know, E-Hall passes are a new mechanic at Tuscarora and other LCPS schools where students have to digitally send a pass to go to where they need to go and have it approved by teachers. This helps the administrators and school know where people are going and how many people are out of their classes. A problem these E-Hall passes have presented is that most students send their E-Hall passes through their chromebooks rather than their phones as it’s easier to do, and students aren’t going to be carrying around their chromebooks to wherever they have to go unless it’s maybe to the library to print something. This, as well as the problem that E-Hall passes have completely eliminated any sort of a physical pass that could be given to students by their teachers which then can’t be provided to administrators and monitors for any proof of identification that the student is allowed to be outside of class, has resulted in students being sent to Friday School for no reason.

A number of students have also expressed the same concern regarding Friday School and the fairness it has towards students. Shoebur Rahman highlighted the same fact that students are being given Friday School despite having permission from a teacher. “Students, often-times already have permission to leave class, typically due to getting water after a particularly exasperating class or so. Those students are getting Friday school, despite their benevolent intentions,” he stated.

Shoebur also noted another unfairness that Friday School presents, which is the distance some students have to go to get to their next class and the challenges that could be presented while getting there. Shoebur says, “The system doesn’t account for other factors. It assumes that everyone has the same chance to get to class, when oftentimes students face minor distractions or the hallway has become crammed and hard to move through, and as a result, these students, also with benevolent intentions, get in trouble for it.”

If Tuscarora would like to keep the implementation of Friday School, then there should be a number of strikes or penalties a student gets until they are finally given Friday School. It’s not fair that a student who is always on time to class, has good grades, and has never been given detention throughout their academic career is given Friday School just because they were late to class one time. A penalty system implemented into the Friday School system could help weed out the types of students that are being given Friday School and expose the ones who are typically skipping. This can also help keep skippers in class as if they know they are one skip away from getting Friday School, there’s a chance they’ll just stay in their class in order to avoid Friday School.

The idea of Friday School can still be a thing if Tuscarora would like to keep it, however there needs to be a lot of work in order to make it fair for students, teachers, and administrators as right now it is completely flawed and is starting to get out of control. Students shouldn’t have to worry about being written up for detention because they were late to class one time or for going to the bathroom after receiving permission.