A breeze of wind flies across your face, and as you’re running a teacher yells “Stop Running In The Halls!!” This unfortunately is the experience of a student running through the halls trying to get to class on time before the late bell. In this scenario this student came from the first floor of the school and has to reach the very top floor of the building, and he realizes he’s running out of time.

When I interviewed  Mr. Roth I asked him very pertinent questions and he gave very essential information. When asked why did the school board decide to give students four minutes between classes, He replied “ I do not know when or how the decision for four minutes was made, but four minutes is a fairly standard number in most high schools”. I also questioned him on the Block Days that stopped this school year. He stated “My understanding  is that block days went away to allow for teachers to meet in professional learning communities at the conclusion of the school day.  These meetings, known as PLCs, are a time for teachers who teach the same course to plan together and review the results of common assessments to ensure their instruction is getting the results they desire”. He mentioned that if he could change the in between classes time he “would keep the time at 4 minutes.  I think if there is less time, students would not make it to class.  If the time were increased, there would be too much idle time. Also, any additional time between classes would mean the school day would have to be longer since taking time away from classes would put us at risk of not meeting the number of instructional minutes required for a course to count in the state of Pennsylvania.”

As a student at Norristown Area, I’ve repeatedly heard students talk about how only having four minutes to get to class is unfair. And while Mr. Roth has stated he doesn’t think students should have more time between classes, he does bring up a point about after school hustle. “There are some issues we need to work out particularly at the end of the day, when students find it difficult to get from eighth period, to their lockers, to their bus” , he says.

So there you have it, as the days pass will the time for students in crease or will it stay the same will there be protests or will there be peace.“To be or not to be that it the question”.