As a student who is involved in many things, SRT is a really important time for me to finish work and meet with teachers. Throughout the previous two years I have spent at CHS, SRT has allowed me to become a more productive student and work on time management in general. For example, if I had to make-up a Spanish quiz for one portion of the time and then go to my math class for the other half, I would. 

This school year, CHS made the change from SRT to, now, SSRT. With this new change also comes new rules, including the main rule of only allowing students to go to one classroom for the whole duration of SSRT. This change now makes it difficult for students to get the most out of the already limited time they have in the building due to the COVID-19 outbreak. SRT is a very important time for students to work on tasks. Between group projects, interviews, and help from teachers, it serves as a time to accomplish whatever students need to do. Now, with this new change, it will be more difficult to get the most out of the hour and a half. I don’t think that this new adaptation to SRT will benefit students. 

In addition, students will now have the same group of classmates from sophomore to senior year. That also means they will have the same teacher for those three years. This change also seems like it could have more of a negative effect on students rather than a positive effect. Throughout my years of SRT, the class had generally the same students due to SRT being alphabetically organized, which is similar to the school’s new plan. However, switching teachers every year was beneficial because each teacher was different, therefore they had different things to offer, even just for an SRT class. I had a science teacher one year for SRT, so she was able to help me with any questions I had regarding science. Another year, I had a math teacher, which was also very beneficial when I had questions about math. Changing teachers every year also exposes you to more things and overall it tends to be more beneficial. 

Although these new changes have been implemented because of COVID-19, I do not think that they will benefit students. However, these changes will help with contract tracing, but do not help students get the full use of their time during SRT.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Hannah Baer at [email protected]

Read the 2020-2021 student handbook here for a more in depth description about SSRT.