We are seeing another attempt to change MTSS and all of its flaws beginning with a potential change to second semester’s schedule. No matter what happens it seems neither administration nor students are happy with the way things are. Yes, there is a problem with people skipping during MTSS/Advisory into third block, but the problem should be solved by punishing the troublemaker’s rather than the whole school.
MTSS has had multiple purposes that students use all the time. Some of the ways students use MTSS to help boost their learning to is catch up in classes that they may have fallen behind in. Students also use MTSS academically to finish projects they don’t have time to do in class. For more fun/extracurricular uses, students attend monthly club and activity meetings that can be crucial for getting things done. Finally, it’s sometimes nice to just get a breather from doing work–for teachers and students. That small gesture of being able to talk about something other than schoolwork can mean a lot for students who feel overwhelmed.
For students who are failing—or struggling in—classes, MTSS time is important. It gives them the opportunity to have another try at what has been holding them back. Taking away MTSS would be more harmful than helpful for students who want to do better.
IB students who have tight schedules need the extra time to accomplish whatever work is taking up their time. Eliminating MTSS would be like kicking down a support beam for these students that rely on those 50 minutes every day, leaving them just to rely on the block schedule for extra time, which allows for students to have a gap between A day and B day class work.
Administration seems to be eager to have students involved in clubs and activities to boost student engagement with the school. However, taking away MTSS takes away that opportunity; not everyone can be at after school meetings. People have outside of school commitments that are more important than others.
Eighty-minute class periods are way too long for anyone’s attention span, especially people who’ve gotten used to quick, short-form entertainment. Students need to be able to let their thoughts settle so they can continue to go on with their school day. The claim made during the senior class meeting that the most people are in the halls and trouble happens between MTSS/advisory and third block seems obvious.
It’s when the most travel would and should be happening; if students just need to drop something off or use the restroom, it would be most reasonable to do it during your free time. For the trouble happening, that just seems to be a problem that is out of anyone’s control.
Some of the proposed fixes are adding 10-15 minutes per class or adding 50 minutes to each class one day per week: first block on Mondays, second block on Tuesdays, third block on Wednesdays. The extra time for fourth block would be on Thursdays but would take place earlier in the day. Fridays would have regular Advisory at its normal time.
Tacking on an extra 50 minutes to a class and expecting teachers to be able to hold students’ attention that long is too big of an ask. Keeping kids in the classroom for 2 hours once a week and also keeping them off their phones is an unrealistic task for teachers. As instant satisfaction becomes more normalized, students’ attention spans have shrunk. Two hours for students to focus on one subject is too much to ask. The 80-minute class periods are already pushing the limits for student attention spans. Teachers would have to become entertainers to make the 2-hour block interesting for all.
If MTSS were to go away completely, nobody would be happy. We should work together to find some sort of compromise, such as longer lunches or longer passing periods so students have more time to get to class and decompress. And there’s no guarantee that adding more time wouldn’t make it more likely people would wander the halls because of longer classes. The solution that seems the most reasonable is to deal with the repeat offenders and leave the rest of the school out of it by giving those who abuse the current system strikes and sticking to it, no matter what the case is.
It could work something like this: for 1 strike students get an MTSS detention and get assigned to be in a room with fellow skippers for MTSS. Once a student has had 3 strikes (skipping 3 MTSS), ISS could be assigned for students. The students should turn their phone into the office as a requirement along with being in ISS, so sneaking around isn’t possible. There also should be a no talking rule so it doesn’t turn into a hang out spot. Additionally, skipping MTSS should be on their record as a truancy.
If behavior doesn’t get better: ISS continues, calls are made home and meetings are set with parents. Once behavior has ended, students must be escorted to places for 2 weeks or more, depending on the case.
Keep MTSS the way it is. There are only a small number of people dragging down the school’s morale by letting their poor choices affect all the students who are following the rules. The Buzz agrees that there are problems with MTSS, but it is too valuable to too many students as it currently exists.
