Did you actually use Purple Power Hour?

I don’t know about you, but Purple Power Hour (PPH) gave me a chance to finish homework and catch up on work I didn’t have time to do otherwise.

Between writing stories for The Booster Redux and working after school 20 hours a week, those 50 minutes were precious to me.

Last April, administration implemented a new schedule with a new lunch structure. It lasted 50 minutes and was originally intended to give students an opportunity to catch up on school work, meet with teachers or just relax.

But a few weeks into the new school year, PPH was suspended until further notice due to student misconduct and concerns for safety.

Sitting in the lunchroom, you’d see chaos. Students were walking around, some even arguing with each other and many were leaving behind trash all around the lunch tables.

Administration’s solution to the problem was dividing PPH into two periods of 25 minute lunch blocks. The other 25 minutes is a required study hall session.

The suspension was a necessary consequence. However, there was zero warning before taking away our hour to work.

Rearranging our work time and taking away the opportunity to manage that time interrupted our school day and confused us. Having an hour to work on homework, see teachers for extra tutoring and having time to talk to my friends really helped me deal with the difficulty of the school day.

Not having that extra hour might not seem like it would make a difference, but it definitely did.

But there are two sides to every conflict.

While it seems unjust to take away our time, students need to accept responsibility and acknowledge that it was their bad behavior that got it taken away in the first place.

Teachers and administration make decisions with our best interest in mind. Teaching us accountability and keeping us safe is their job and enforcing rules is a way of guiding us in the right direction. Whether or not you agree with the change that they implemented, it’s their way of teaching us responsibility.

If you want your hour of freedom back, then we all have to do our part to clean up after ourselves and give our teachers and peers respect.

After all, how hard is it to follow simple rules and pick up after ourselves?