By Addison Montoya
At Captain Shreve and all Caddo Parish Schools, students are required to have a certain amount of minutes spent in the classroom for instruction. Administrators make a big deal about the amount of time that can or can’t be spent on a pep rally or other assembly so they are able to meet the minute quota. The amount of time wasted and used for other things during class happens more often than it should.
Students miss a lot of school because of personal reasons, vacations, doctor appointments, and not to mention if they’re an athlete. Teachers also miss a good amount of time from teaching as well. If we are required to spend such an amount of time on instruction, why are these minutes wasted when we are in class every single day?
Teachers have personal reasons why they don’t come to school. Eventually their absence affects the students. Daily substitutes compromise instruction time because they are not experts in the curriculum.
The amount of instruction time wasted while the teachers are out prevents students from getting proper instructional preparation for finals and other tests like the ACT, LEAP, and CLEP tests. These tests are vital for evaluating not only the student’s abilities but also for evaluating the teacher’s skills. Core classes like English and Math are very important to attend.
Teachers don’t always come to school or even teach in the class but sometimes they don’t even try to help the students make up anything because of how students don’t come to school regularly either. Over time more and more students don’t come to school because they just don’t care.
Students and teachers don’t attend school every single day like they should because of personal reasons and their personal lives. The bottom line is learning is deficient and students are affected by how much time they don’t spend in class. We could all do better if we cared.