As of right now, East’s admin is reconsidering the continuation of WIN time — previously known as seminar — for the next upcoming school year. At the beginning of the school year, students would often leave the designated academic time to go home or out to eat with friends due to the lenient rules surrounding the 90-minute block on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Now with the pressure from the district and things going back to how they were pre-pandemic, administration is changing it up.
Administration and Student Resource Officers are having to stand at doors in order to make sure that kids aren’t leaving the building. This new policy has caused some students to become aggravated about the new WIN protocols, but building Principal Jason Peres believes leaving Seminar is just a missed opportunity to catch up on assignments and meet with teachers for extra help.
“As a school, East believes WIN time is very valuable,” Peres says. “It’s two and a half hours during the week that students could use to catch up on academic work, participate in a club or get support and help from teachers around the school.”
Peres believes the habit of students leaving is a result of the growing “COVID culture” — a time where kids were encouraged to leave campus during seminar. This culture has been built due to the rules surrounding seminar last year, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 by avoiding extensive student contact.
According to Associate Principal Susan Leonard, with a recent survey going out, having students vote on their preferred school schedule for next year, she is hoping for the schedule to be more innovative and to use the school time differently.
If WIN time continues next year, the plan is to do a better job of student progress tracking. This means East faculty would intervene with students who need extra support and then mandating that they go to certain places to get that help and support. But with students leaving campus and showing WIN time may not be needed, the idea of WIN time not continuing next year is a real possibility, according to Peres.
“A schedule committee is convening to look at what schedule we’re going to adopt next year,” Peres says. “They’re going to make a decision, and are going to use staff, students and community input to make that decision.”
If the district and committee decides against having the twice-a-week hour and a shorter WIN time on Tuesdays and Thursday, the revised schedule would leave room for more instructional minutes in the day, which would result in longer class periods overall.
“It’s a very difficult question,” Peres says. “We have just as many students that depend on WIN time as we do that don’t care about it. We’ve discovered there is no middle ground for students.”
Sophomore Maddie Doyle tends to leave during WIN time for personal reasons, and these new protocols make it hard for her to do what needs to be done.
“Currently, I am not the biggest fan of these WIN time protocols,” Doyle says. “I occasionally have to leave for family reasons or to actually be able to study.”
Doyle often finds herself needing to study in a calm, quiet environment away from the chaos of kids talking obnoxiously or playing their TikToks in class — her loud Biology classroom makes the whole idea of “peace and quiet ” impossible.
“I do really like learning, I just wished that this was a kind of school where we could just leave and then come back responsibly,” Doyle said. “I actually learn a lot better when I’m at home, in my own environment where I can study and have time to myself. I don’t need the social aspect of school sometimes, which can be overbearing, when I’m trying to learn and study for an upcoming test.”
Senior Toby Rodriguez finds that WIN time is a great way to use the time as the student desires, and how they end up needing to use it.
“After a while, with more teachers standing in front of exits, it was certainly deterring,” Rodriguez said. “I definitely wanted to leave less because I was afraid they would ask to see a pass while I was leaving.”
Rodriguez is a supporter of WIN time, yet still believes students should be able to head to class, leave and take care of what needs to be done at home, and then come back responsibly. A way for students to learn time management skills necessary for success after high school, according to Rodriguez.
Through the varying opinions from East students, teachers and staff, the current status of next year’s WIN time outcomes remain unknown and undecided from East.
For Peres there is no “best answer” as to whether he’s pushing to keep WIN time, or pushing to get rid of it. It’s best that the decision is being made as a district according to Peres. According to Peres, It’s hard for him to lean one way or the other on it because no matter what direction he leans, Peres isn’t giving his support to a group of students.