Things We Should Change at Fugett

By Adhinanth Karthikeyan and Adhvaith Adav Vasudev

The opinions in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of Fugett Middle School or the West Chester Area School District. 

Oh, middle school, some of the most challenging years of our lives. A transition from jolly, easy elementary school, to a hardworking factory that is middle school. Although I have come to notice that there are many things that we would change with J.R. Fugett Middle School.

On average middle schoolers spend 30-40 hours on homework each week on average. That's 30-40 hours that we could be doing something that interests our personal likings. Some people might not even use some of the information that we learn in school. As middle schoolers, we are suffering through an epidemic of tragedy, disengagement, and anxiety. We come home from school, do homework, eat dinner, then sleep. Some of us have barely any time for pleasure and playing outside. We should get a reasonable 5 hours of homework per week and around an hour of homework per day and not more.

Sleep deprivation is another issue with middle school students that we should change. After a full day of school, homework, class, and hobbies we go to bed and wake up in just 8-9 hours. Most people sleep around 9:00 P.M and Wake up around 5-6:00 A.M. According to the National Kids Heart Association, children ages 3-14 should be sleeping for about 10 hours. So basically, according to the nationwide heart association, this schedule is not healthy for our fellow primary school children. This is clearly unfair as the other middle-school students in our school district wake up at around 7:00. Give me at least until secondary school. An alternate schedule would probably be from 8:00-2:50. Just like in the other schools. That would be much more ideal.

We deserve better lockers! Does anyone else feel that their locker is too small? On a vote of the members of Fugett Lowdown we came to the conclusion that 10% of people thought that lockers are properly sized and 90% of people voted that lockers are too small. In the winter our backpacks and coats take up the whole locker. With only 3 minutes between classes to locker it is impossible to fit in large binders and computers. Sometimes the locker randomly jams and it is harder to open. These are some of the flaws with lockers in Fugett.

Now what is wrong with our schedule you may ask. You may think it is perfect. Well, you are wrong. Care Period is great, but it should be at the end of the day. Then, we'd know what assignments to do, and then homework stress would not be a thriving problem. Care Period needs to be at the end, then late assignment rate would be lower, even our club leader agrees. At the end people, remember.

To summarize, there are a couple of things that we would change, but that is besides the point that Fugett is a wonderful school with amazing teachers. This is just merely a suggestion box to forward our thoughts into an article. So take it with a grain of sand (the nucleus of most pearls).