Flex time at Weber High School is meant to help students complete homework, take tests or get help from teachers. With flex being shortened by 10 minutes this year, many students are finding it harder to get work done during the time given. The question remains to be whether it’s the students or the time that are the issue, while it seems that the latter is the case.
In previous years, flex had been a 40-minute homework period, which has since been cut down to 30. This has made the entire idea of flex more difficult for students and teachers. Tyler Tippets, senior, feels that he doesn’t have enough time in flex to get things done. “I’m only able to get half my work done at most. I need time to work on assignments or to study for a test the next period, or to even plan out the rest of my day, and I don’t have enough time to do all that in 30 minutes,” Tippets said. When asked about other things that make flex difficult, Tippets put a major emphasis on two things. The time constraint and availability. “Not always being able to flex into the classes that you want to because of how many kids are going to those classes at once, he said. “A lot of that has to do with the time constraints that they put on Flex though,” he added.
With cutting down flex time by 10 minutes this year, Weber has reused that time by spreading it into the class periods. With adding more time in classes, it gives more material for the students to learn and study. But then the study hall gets cut down, so it gives students less time to learn the material that they are taught in that extra time. Lewi Hogge, junior, believes that losing those 10 minutes has made it harder for him to finish his work. “I feel that [flex] is very beneficial to me. I get most of my homework started during this time, where I wouldn’t do that at home.” Then, he adds, “But, flex is too short for me to focus and finish that work,” Hogge’s situation is similar to many other students at Weber High, where the work can be started during flex, but not finished. And, with most students not wanting to do schoolwork outside of school, the odds of that schoolwork being finished outside of class or flex are slim. “I think that with more content-filled classes, we need more time to study, do the homework or to learn the content if a day was missed rather than having less time during flex compared to previous years,” Hogge said confidently.
The shorter flex period isn’t only making things difficult for students, but for many teachers as well. Kyle Stanger, Business and Marketing teacher, expressed his frustration with the current status of Weber’s flex period. “There’s statistics showing that flex works, and that remediation needs to work,” he said. “But you want me to do that all in 20 minutes?” he asked. Stanger also mentioned different possibilities to improve flex. “Maybe you do two sessions of flex, where you can switch classes. Give two half-hour sessions and the student can say that they need to be in a class for both sessions to work on bigger assignments or tests so they actually have time to complete them and get the help they need,” Stanger said. He added, “When students take a test in flex, they are pretty much guaranteed a tardy excuse because they don’t finish it in the class time. This two-session block would fix that.” Stanger is a passionate voice for Weber High and for its students; if he doesn’t think something is working, then the odds are that it isn’t.
Flex classes have a reputation of being an effective time for students. With losing 10 minutes of that class, students lose out on opportunities to gain a better understanding of material and complete homework. Flex is known to work, so it should be formatted in a way that maximizes student success. Adding back the time that was taken away will help achieve that success for those that aim for it.