To: Steven Miller
End Late-Start Thursdays and Panther Time
For the safety of students, Panther Time (unsupervised free time) and late-start Thursdays need to be stopped.
Why is this important?
Removing late start Thursdays at Ray-Pec High School will allow the students to create a routine. After speaking with many parents, these late starts are creating issues with jobs, interferes with siblings, and can create an unsafe environment. Most students in high school should be capable of staying home by themselves without supervision. However, there are many students who are not capable of this. This petition could prove to the school the needs of the parents. The school says these late starts avoid having a teacher on service days. This is not true. They still have the same teacher on service days as all the other schools in the district.
Panther time should be a privilege and a supervised activity. This shouldn't be something just given to students. Again, talking with parents of current and graduated students, their children got into trouble during Panther time because of the "free" environment. Students can sit anywhere and do whatever they want and if you go to the office to get your student they don't know where your teen will be. With all the school shootings, this is placing kids in harm's way. The last thing we need is to not know where students are. During Panther time students have snuck into places and have (by way of social media, NOT the school) been found to be doing inappropriate, non-school sanctioned activities. With teens, we all know the activities that have happened.
Put the students' safety FIRST.
Panther time should be a privilege and a supervised activity. This shouldn't be something just given to students. Again, talking with parents of current and graduated students, their children got into trouble during Panther time because of the "free" environment. Students can sit anywhere and do whatever they want and if you go to the office to get your student they don't know where your teen will be. With all the school shootings, this is placing kids in harm's way. The last thing we need is to not know where students are. During Panther time students have snuck into places and have (by way of social media, NOT the school) been found to be doing inappropriate, non-school sanctioned activities. With teens, we all know the activities that have happened.
Put the students' safety FIRST.