Flex in the morning is a change to our routines.

Instead of placed in our schedule right before PowerHour, we report to Period 1 with the first 10 minutes dedicated to the daily announcements and teachers reminding students who have required PowerHours which teacher needs to see them.

But, people are using flex in many different ways. While some teachers have their kids watch the announcements or read the announcements to them, other teachers have students just sit there to wait for the actual class to start. Some teachers even allow their students to be on their phones during this time. And others actually start class at 7:30 a.m. without using flex as flex at all. And, far too many students use it to get to school 10 minutes later even though construction does not seem to be as big a problem as everyone anticipated.

We could be using flex in so many more ways than we are currently. During the 10 minutes, teachers should show or read the announcements so we know what is going on with clubs, sports, student opportunities, etc. They really need to tell us which PowerHours are required for individual students, too. Our teachers could be going over the agenda and remind their students of assignments due. Students are given the relief of having flex in the morning to make sure they can get here on time, but they could be using it to get their work done which could relieve them from a little homework at night.

In previous years, flex was used more productively. When it was later in the day, students got to go to different teachers each day, depending on the flex period that day. We were more aware of required PowerHours because PowerHour was right after flex. We did not have four periods to forget even if our teachers did remind us during early morning flex.

I think teachers should be using flex the way it is supposed to be used, and since we do not seem to be using flex as productively in the morning, it would be helpful to move it back to before PowerHour. We liked it and used it better then.