One of the newest components of Eagle Valley High School this year is “Access,” a time built into the school day for students to talk to teachers, work on homework, or catch up on work that they may have missed. Another intended purpose of this time is to help build a more close-knit community within our school. The idea is that each Access class will develop into a sort of family, a group of people that someone can rely on for both academic and non-academic help that that person sees every day. These are both great ideas that will hopefully make Eagle Valley High School a much better place to work and spend time at.

First, the idea for Access to be a study hall built into the day for the entire school to utilize is very exciting. A large part of the student population at Eagle Valley is engaged in a wide range of activities like cross country, skiing, soccer, and track. This causes a lot of students to miss school. Access Hour gives these students an opportunity to make up the work that they may have missed. I know how much of a pain it was to catch up after a day at a sporting event and how difficult it was to meet with my teachers and do a bunch of make-up work on top of the homework I already had. Hopefully, Access will allow myself and others to participate in both school and activities without a ton of stress.

There is also the exciting fact that every teacher in the entire school is available for us to use. In past years, it has been very difficult to talk to teachers outside of class time to get the extra help that we all sometimes need. Now, we have time in the school day to talk to these teachers, meaning that we all have to go through a lot less work to get our needs met.

Finally, it is  nice to have a study hall built in to the day every single day that we can take advantage of. I know that myself and many other kids at Eagle Valley have a lot on their plate but who would not have taken the time to sign up for a study hall. Instead, we would have  taken another class on top of already heavy workloads. Access offers us all a break in which we can do our homework in school, which a lot of students need.

I truly hope that Access succeeds in its other goal of building a better community at Eagle Valley High School. It would make the school much more functional and social, and it would allow kids from many different backgrounds to become friends. However, so far, I don’t really believe it is meeting this goal. The first two weeks of school where we were forced to stay in our rooms for this hour to do activities and bond; I personally felt was stretched too long and took up time where I could have been getting help from other teachers I already needed to talk to. Most of the kids in my room seemed uninterested or bored instead of the excited, helpful atmosphere I was expecting. Talking to other people, I got the sense that the same thing was happening in most other rooms as well. Hopefully, in the future, these classes do bond and work together, and I look forward to seeing my class continue to develop. I think that there is a lot of potential for Access Hour to be a great success. I am, as most other kids are, already using this time to do work and get the help I need.

I truly hope that with some time Access does become something that really brings the school together, and I am very excited to see where it goes.