Story by Isaac Yontz and Anjali Noel Ramesh

RBHS’s principal and the assistant principals are being firmer about not allowing teachers to release students before the bell. In past years, some staff members, as well as the high schoolers themselves, with permission from their teacher, could slide out of the classroom minutes before the final bell without repercussions. Now, however, this leniency is not quite as accepted. 

The rule was previously put in place per administration’s approval after noticing teachers were letting students out too early.

Language teacher Kristen Reed has noticed more vice principals in the hall, and to her, this extra application is a necessary measure.

“My philosophy is that learning a language is never done,” Reed said. “I always have more planned for us to do than what we get through, and if I have time after my lesson then there’s always things we can do to improve our learning and our rhythm and flow and pronunciation.” 

While not having experienced the watchful eye of an assistant principal herself, Reed believes they are watching for reasons related to students rather than to teachers.

“They are trying to minimize the situations happening in the hall.” Reed said,“I’ve heard that they [administration] are trying to monitor hallways just because there have been more situations and conflicts,”

While Reed believes students should be held to the bell because education is never complete, Dr. Andrew Kinslow, RBHS Honors Biology, AP Environmental Science and Contemporary Issues teacher, said to ensure students’ safety, the teachers must adhere to the bell schedule.

“This is a very personal story for me. I’ve taught for 20 or some odd years now, and at my prior school we had a situation in which a student left early and was killed in a car accident,” Kinslow said. “I was the student’s first block teacher. That is haunting for a teacher to struggle with, and how that accident happened.” 

Although Kinslow stands in firm belief students shouldn’t be let out early, he still feels sympathetic to students who must navigate the parking lot after school or rush to an outside job. However, the priority is to make sure the students are safe.

“I feel like we need to use our class time efficiently, and my goal as a teacher is to do the best I can to help students be successful, and that includes keeping them safe,” Kinslow said.

Principal Jacob Sirna, along with the vice principals and the school resource officer, have access to the security cameras on his computer. As far as Sirna knows, however, there is no single person who is in charge of watching the security cameras all day, and they are mainly used for emergency situations as a valuable resource.

Sirna also believes teachers can build the best relationships with their students and facilitate the most quality learning when they have the full class period to do so. He maintains the idea that the teachers’ time with students is valuable. 

“I’ve heard pretty regularly from teachers in my time in education that they [teachers] don’t feel like the time that we have is enough to do the task that we’ve been charged with doing,” Sirna said, “Our job as educators is to do the best that we can with the time that we have with our students. Coming from a mindset that we can always be better, and we can all learn more, we can all have a deeper understanding of whatever it is we are learning. That time is really valuable in class and we need to use that time to that end.”

Even with the administration’s goal to run class bell to bell, sometimes leaving class before the bell is beneficial to students. With 2,000 students traveling between classes, navigating to rooms all over the building can be a timely process.  

To junior Isaiah Dameron, the new restrictions are unnecessary for this reason especially. He believes the time it takes to progress through a congested hallway causes students to be significantly later to class than before the rule was forced. Instead, loosening up on kids who have a few extra minutes to reach their next class is a solution, according to Dameron.

“That naturalizes the traffic flow in the hallways so they do not get congested,” Dameron said. “If every teacher were to let out students out at the same time as now, it would take one to two more minutes more to get their classes.”

Teachers also believe that the new system is unnecessary. RBHS Psychology, AP World and Contemporary Issues teacher David Graham believes if his lesson is complete with minutes to spare, the students should not be kept waiting for the bell.

“If I’m done and I don’t have anything else for the kids, I’m not going to play a game with them and try and keep them in class,” Graham said, “If it’s over five minutes, I might not let them go, but if it’s under five, then there’s no point in them staying.”

Graham’s schedule is based on the timing of each of his classes, with some running longer than others, and while not having direct experience with the watching vice principals, he does not believe letting students out a few minutes before the bell is a punishable act.

Even though the change is inconvenient for students. Teachers like Reed and Kinslow believe that it is imperative to running an efficient classroom.

“I think it’s just the responsibility of the teacher to not waste your time,” Kinslow said, “And that whatever we’re having students work on is quality and it’s engaging.”

Do you think teachers should be able to dismiss students early? Let us know in the comments below. [penci_authors_box_2 style_block_title=”style-title-11″ columns=”columns-2″ post_desc_length=”20″ number=”2″ order_by=”user_registered” include=”51, 47″ block_id=”penci_authors_box_2-1571933620986″ custom_markup_1=””]