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In 1969, principal Barton Knowles believed that it was necessary to create a system in which Lowell students could be free from the standard schedule.
He believed that Lowell students “had the self discipline to be free from a restrictive, seven-period school day,” according to the Lowell High School Sesquicentennial published by the Lowell Alumni Association. He also believed that Lowell students held a greater level of “intellectual maturity” than students on other campuses. Knowles believed that it was natural to implement a modular system, a system that allowed for Lowell students, who are distinguished and highly intellectual, to have the flexibility to study in their free time and excel in their classes.
I, like many adolescents in this progressive generation, appreciate the new, but only if it replaces something outdated or nonsensical. I take issue with the changes being made to the unique institutions of Lowell High School. I take issue with students being kept in the dark about issues that affect the entire student body. I take issue with the idea that our administration allows our school to be subject to archaic and mundane rules which are inapplicable to our unique school’s character. The truth is that students and faculty are frustrated because Lowell’s traditions are in jeopardy. With the administration implementing changes, Lowell High School is at risk of being another name on the long list of schools without an identity, without anything unique about it.
Now in 2010, the administration has decided that the modular system is flawed, on the grounds that students are not being supervised in a classroom by a certified instructor for the mandatory instructional school time. The administration assembled a committee that came up with four proposals for a new system, proposals that included systems foreign to the school such as a block schedule.
The new schedule, “the most similar of the four schedules to the current modular system,” elongates the school day by increasing the length of A-code classes, decreasing the time between A-code classes from 30 minutes to 24 minutes and decreasing the amount of A-code classes offered, thus eliminating the number of swing mods open to students. A lot of students who do not have a lunch use swing mods as a period of study time. Students will no longer be able to enjoy the 30 minutes they had before to study, socialize and relax after an exhausting class; they now have to spend their time like food stamps, allocating fewer minutes to studying, socializing and relaxing before they are herded back into another grueling class.
Students are feeling their academic and social freedoms clamped down on. Independent time used to study for tests is now being reduced despite the fact that “Lowell’s Advanced Placement program is the fourth-largest among all American high schools, public or private, in terms of total number of AP exams administered,” according to the Lowell Alumni Association (lowellalumni.org), and that Lowell is ranked one of the top 30 high schools in America, according to US News (usnews.com).
Now Lowell students who stay after school to study, dance, talk, socialize — be free — are now being herded at five o’clock like sheep out of what is, for many of them, their home away from home. Interestingly enough, students are being kicked out of school onto the very streets the administration claims are hazardous. I once observed a group of five students talking until 9 p.m. in the same corner of the science wing about Pokemon and Magic cards. Sure, there might be a safety code that requires students to leave by a certain time, but what about all of the kids whose getaway is Lowell? What about the countless number of friends who stay at Lowell and leave once they are tired of laughing and joking for hours on end? What about the kids who have no means to get home except to wait at Lowell until 7 p.m. when their parents get off work? This shallow policy ignores any emotional attachment or bonds that have been created through a student’s afterschool experience at Lowell. This new policy says one thing to me: Instead of finding an alternative solution trying to preserve the communal and homey feel students have for Lowell, the enforcement of the safety codes is much more important than the value of the school to the student body.
There is currently a lack of openness between the student body and administration on these issues. If the administration would demonstrate an honest commitment to those things that make Lowell unique and to preserve Lowell’s free-spirited campus, then the school community will not live in the fear that changing Lowell’s values may lead to an under-achieving and undistinguished, cookie-cutter school. But open communication is critical. Newsletters distributed during registry period inform, but do not allow for student input. In a time of crisis, I would like to see some sort of face-to-face address to the student body that outlines what exactly the crisis is, how it will affect our school and what students can do to voice their input over the potentially negative consequences.
Lowell is not ranked the 28th distinguished high school in the nation, according to US News, by conforming and doing what every other public school in the nation does. To say so is to accuse the student body of being average and ordinary, and nothing could be further from the truth.
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