Julian Cronin, President of the class of 2021

OPINION: Classes should not be extended. 

Classes during remote learning at Whitney Young are longer than ever, and CPS elites are reportedly planning to make things even more tedious. Earlier today, Bebeacon correspondent Fletcher Fraher was on the phone with the Whitney Young Senior Class President, Julian Cronin. They talked about several personal things, but the conversation eventually turned to a rumor involving plans by CPS executives. According to Julian, the people in charge of CPS regulation have started discussions involving “extending high school class day lengths to 96 minutes,” rather than the current 75. Julian and Fletcher had a talk about this and established that, from the perspective of the students that this would affect, this would be a “bad idea.” Frankly, if executed, this shift in schedule would result in less productive classes overall, as well as less satisfied students and a scramble by teachers to re-adjust to having extra time to burn. This could go one of two ways, either with teachers assigning more busywork to achieve a quota, or with more time at the end allocated specifically for free time/homework time. It’s uncertain which of these possibilities would result in a better outcome overall, but as we see it, an extension to school days is “against the best interest for both the many students, and the teachers who have already are already majorly struggling when it comes to adjusting to remote learning.”