Airport students believe that school hours can be draining, to a point

by Erin J.

Recently discussion about how much time needs to be spent at school has gotten students talking. Students who attend Airport are here for five days a week for eight hours everyday. The requirement is to be in class at 8:30 and leave at 3:30. It’s important to get first hand feedback on how they feel about their daily school schedules.

Students interviewed lamented how long a school day is, and towards how their body, interest, and energy are continuously being affected throughout the day.

However, a small handful of students believe that a difference in amount of hours wouldn’t make a difference. In fact, many tend to say it would have the same effect on their daily live it would feel like any other school day.

“Sometimes it’s useful, like depending on the class,” said Amayah H. about regular school hours. This student also stated, “I just feel like we shouldn’t be in there for that long.”

“The classes are too long, and I can’t pay attention cause they’re so long,” said Yamahni J., referring to how the school schedule effects her attention span. “It gets boring and repetitive because it’s the same thing every year.”

Overall, students at Airport Highschool believe the period of time provided for every block is unnecessarily long causing students to loose interest and motivation.

According to the SC code of laws, “The statutory school term is one hundred ninety days annually and must consist of a minimum of one hundred eighty days of instruction.”

The website Wikipedia states that in the U.S there are normally 160-180 school days in one year. This may effect how long school days could be.

A lot of schools around the world have shorter school days than the average American school and some may have even longer school days than we do. School is subject to the environment it’s established in. According to the Pew Research Center, American students are, on average, required to spend 1,000 hours at school each year. More interestingly, the amount of time spent at school does not necessarily correlate with higher achievement. According to an article from Insider.com, children in Finland spend an average of three hours and 45 minutes of educational instruction each day whereas in the US, children spend roughly 6.5 hours a day in the classroom. However, according to OECD data that measures academics across countries, Finnish students ranked number two in the world in reading, math, and science. In other words, one of the best school systems in the world sends their students to school the least amount of time. Perhaps South Carolina could take note. If the effect on education outcomes is not correlated to amount of time spent at school, what is the real reason American kids spend so much time in the school building?

For a list of legislation pertaining to education in South Carolina, including seat time laws, visit https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/title59.php .