The changes made to the high school Bruin Block system have not been well accepted by students. The Bruin Block system used by middle school students for the past two years has now been put into effect for high schoolers. Under this system, students are assigned a location to go to during Bruin Block on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. The only day that students are allowed to choose where they go for Bruin Block is on Wednesdays, when the period lasts for 50 minutes rather than 30. A new “eighth period” Bruin Block has been created as well where students attend third period and engage in silent and sustained reading. The lack of choice with regards to where high school students can go for Bruin Block four out of five days a week has been quite unpopular.

The students of Lake Braddock generally loved the system of Bruin Block where they could choose where they would go the entire school week. If a student had to make up a missed assignment or receive help on material they didn’t understand, he or she could walk into that teacher’s class for Bruin Block and do said assignment. They could also receive needed one-on-one instruction any day of the week instead of having to go after school or waiting until Bruin Block on Wednesday.

“Students had a freedom not seen outside of a college campus,” principal Dave Thomas said.

Two years ago, the assigned location system was introduced to the middle school students, and was met with positive reviews from middle school teachers.

“I think it’s helpful to [middle school] students because some students had trouble deciding what’s important for them; sometimes they would go to hang out with their friends,” eighth grade science teacher Eric Eichelberger said. “If they’re given a little bit of guidance on where they should go, I think it helps them make sure they’re completely caught up in all their classes.”

So why did the system so adored by high school students change? Thomas said it was an issue of accountability. During Bruin Block, some students would not be in any of their classes and could not be found on school grounds. Locating students during Bruin Block in case of an urgent issue was difficult and time-consuming because attendance was poorly recorded and enforced.

While there was definitely an accountability issue involving Bruin Block last year, it wasn’t necessary to take it to the extreme. The exact same accountability issue still exists on Wednesdays, as students do not write down where they are going for Bruin Block with their morning teachers, and therefore they are still difficult to locate during that time. The new system has unwarrantedly limited the useful freedom every day of all high school students, and it hasn’t solved the accountability problem of a few in return; the problem has simply been mitigated to one day a week. Moving towards a more open system would not only return back some of the freedom students feel they deserve when they’re almost adults, but it could more effectively solve the accountability problem than the current implementation as well.

Instead of assigning students to a certain Bruin Block, the administration could have made it a bigger issue for teachers to make sure their students not only signed up for Bruin Block, but also turned in their sign-in sheets to administration so students who lied about where they were going could be disciplined accordingly. This would have solved the accountability issue involving Bruin Block if teachers cooperated and made it a big issue for students.