Do you ever find yourself up late studying or struggling to make time to stay after school to make up assignments?

Three high schools in Frederick County have a “fifth period,” a short time for students to make up work, get homework done, retake/ make up a test, and meet for clubs and advisement. Students who attended New Market Middle School had something similar to advisement, called “Lancer Time,” which was held every Friday at the end of the day for 30 minutes. Students who attended Windsor Knolls Middle School had ELT, which stood for Extended Learning Time, and was held every day for 30 minutes. During both Lancer Time and ELT, students had the opportunity to go to classrooms for tutoring, make up tests, or finish homework.

Do Lancers need some Lancer Time?

Currently, LHS advisement is held every Monday between first and second period for 20 minutes. During the winter season, the snow days affected whether or not advisement was held. Due to being off of school for so many days, students went several weeks with no advisement.

Even when there is regular advisement, it is not always used productively. Sometimes there are lessons for current topics such as bullying and digital footprints, but many times advisement is just to hand out report cards or make announcements. Advisement has an important purpose, though: it’s an opportunity for a student to make a long-term connection with a teacher and a group of students because, normally, the student has the same advisement teacher for four years.

“My advisement teacher does a good job of making sure we get lessons done when we have them, but when we finish we don’t have as much to do so we usually just use our phones,” said Kaylee Henry.

Surrounding Frederick County high schools, Oakdale, Walkersville, and Thomas Johnson, all have some kind of extended learning time (ELT) built into their schedules.  This time can be used for the same advisement type activities, but the daily scheduled time is also devoted to many additional purposes.

What are the advantages of having ELT built into the school day?

Students who have after school activities like sports, band practice, or play practice sometimes find it hard to balance being able to get their homework done and participate in their activities. ELT gives students the opportunity to get homework done, make up a test, or get any sort of after-school help they need. At Oakdale, the time set aside is called SET, Student Enrichment Time, and was started four years ago with former principal Dr. George Seaton. He learned about the program from Manchester Valley High School.

“In my opinion, SET has been a beneficial program. I strongly recommend it,” said Seaton. At Oakdale, SET is held every day for 40 minutes between first and second period.

Staying after school to make up a test is easy for some students because they can drive themselves, but for underclassmen and students who do not have transportation, staying after school can be an issue. This is especially true at LHS, which does not have safe routes to any students’ homes and does not have any form of public transoportation.

“I can see it benefiting every student in the building,” said Mrs. Stephanie Bindel, chairperson of Linganore’s special education department.

How would ELT work?

With ELT, teachers could request a student to come to their class via a live database system. The student would then be able to make up a test during that time and would not have to worry about finding a ride after school.

“ELT provides opportunities for more direct teacher support,” said Mrs. Traci Davies, a special education teacher.

A teacher may have a group of students for a study group, and the rest of the class could be getting their homework done. With the ELT model, every teacher would have students on task working on homework, lessons, or studying.  The teacher would also be able to work with a small requested group.

What are the disadvantages to ELT?

Having ELT built into the daily schedule would take 200 instructional minutes away every week. Losing all that time would take away from teaching time and learning time. Some people might assume that it would hit AP the hardest, but losing this time would affect all classes, especially when the full 90 minute period is needed for standardized testing.

“Yes, it will take away from our teaching time, but it will also give the opportunity for students to study and review more,” said Mr. Aaron Burch, social studies chairperson.

With ELT, school lunch shifts might also change. Because there would be less time in third period, LHS would most likely have to switch from having four lunch shifts to only having three. This could cause the lunch room to get too crowded.

There would have to be some sort of way to track attendance with all the students coming and going.  Skipping a class might be easier if teachers were keeping track of several different groups of students.

So, what do you think? Do Lancers need some Lancer time? We think that it would benefit our school greatly. Students would be so much happier if they had time during the school day to finish homework instead of worrying about missing out on after school activities. We already work hard in our classes, and having more work after school is not something we enjoy. Extra one-on-one time with a teacher is always helpful, and having a reliable time to make up work or be tutored would be appreciated.