MIDVALE, UT: At Hillcrest High School, while people are able to rotate APP classes, they are unable to do so on Mondays, which has caused quite a bit of anguish among the student body.
APP classes, which are not always commonplace among other high schools, are an essential part of the day here at Hillcrest High School. Students use them for a variety of purposes, such as meeting with teachers, retaking tests, and even getting help with tough homework.
The removal of APP rotations on Mondays has been terribly inconvenient for those who wish to do these tasks. One student at Hillcrest High, Mark Green, was understandably not a fan of this new policy, having witnessed it take effect last year.
According to Green, the new policy had negatively impacted his schoolwork, saying that “I wasn’t able to retake a test for one of my classes because I was sick before the end of the quarter and my teacher wasn’t available on any of the other APP rotation days.”
This is emblematic of a problem that plagues the school now- many students are unable to accomplish work that needs to be done due to them not being able to contact the teachers when they need to.
This issue becomes further amplified when one notices that the same student body who is impacted by the policy is not aware of the reasons for the implementation of the policy. There are undoubtedly various theories floating around the school- maybe it is a way to check attendance of APP classes more efficiently, or perhaps it could even have been a change designed to show students videos that have been requested to be spread by the district.
As Green put it, “I think I heard that it was put into place so that students would check in with their APP teacher about their grades as a whole, but I’m not exactly sure if that is why.”
The problem, of course, is that many of the reasons for the implementation of the policy likely do not hold up to scrutiny. Assuming that Green’s analysis of the situation is the likeliest reason (which it probably is), could the school administration not put into place a
method to intervene when a student has either too many missing assignments or their grade point average (GPA) dips too low? And assuming that it was for some other reason that required every student to be accounted for, would keeping APP rotations in place not have been just as effective?
Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the change is that to some students it could be construed as punishment in some way, shape, or form. Many teachers have undoubtedly expressed frustration with students that are either being loud and disruptive, or even entering the class without even having the class to begin with.
Unfortunately, even this reason does not hold up to a close examination of the issue. Green, who undoubtedly was present for most APP periods, was of the opinion that the classes were not generally too disruptive, and that those who were off topic (or, in other
words, using the period for something that wasn’t beneficial at all) were a very small portion
of the student body overall.
of the student body overall.
According to him, “On most days, students either worked on homework for their classes or talked with friends. I saw a few of them playing computer games, but they were the minority.”
Ultimately, this new policy is both incredibly unpopular among the student body and is a source of much confusion among those who undoubtedly needed the rotations to get work done. As such, at the minimum, even if the rotations cannot return, the administration should ideally explain their reasoning behind taking the acclaimed APP rotations on Mondays away