While students should be worried about their education and classwork, they are instead worried if they will get to class on time everyday. The students at Jersey Village High School get a total of 6 minutes between classes, but is this enough? The answer is no, the students do not have the right amount of time that they need to take care of their business for a few main reasons.
All high schools in Cypress- Fairbanks ISD have a 6-minute passing period policy, including Jersey Village HS. However, the students have been making it apparent that they don’t think that this is enough time for them for a few reasons, which include not being able to get to class on time, not having enough time to use the restroom, and the amount of student traffic in the halls.
First, let’s talk about the students not being able to get to class on time. Now, of course, this could be for a variety of reasons, but the main reason that students did not seem to have enough time is because they have classes either in the portables or one of the back hallways.
When asked, Joscelin, a senior here at JV, about how she felt about the time between classes, she responded, “I don’t think I have enough time. Literally I have to sprint to every single class.” I then asked her how adding an extra minute to the passing period would affect her, to which she stated, “It would help me. I would finally not be tardy for, like, 5 of my classes and it would make me mentally more sane and happy.”
Another reason that students don’t think they have enough time between classes is the amount of time it takes to stand in the restroom class during the passing period. It seems to be the case for many students that in order to be on time for class, they have to rush to use the restroom or skip using it altogether.
A freshman at JV named Leah was also asked how she feels about the time between classes to which she said she thinks she has enough time. So, I asked her how she manages that time and she responded, “I don’t really stop between classes, I just go.” By this she means that she doesn’t make time for the restroom lines in order to make it to class on time.
In addition, Mrs. Dang, a math teacher at JV, said, when asked about how she feels about students interrupting her class to use the restroom, “I personally do not like that because we are covering a lot of things in class and if they are leaving my class, they will be missing a lot of content, which means when they come back to me, I will have to reteach it to them.” 
The third most reported reason that students believe that they don’t have enough time between classes is because of the amount of traffic in the hallways. When there is not a lot of time to get places, people crowd up in hopes of getting places faster, but it does the exact opposite.
Nevaeh Shelton, a sophomore student at JV, was also asked how she feels about the time we have between classes, to which she said,” Honestly, I feel like it needs to be a little longer because there’s so many people in the hallways, I get, like beat up just going to class.” I then asked her if she ever had trouble getting to class and when she answered yes, I followed up with asking why, she said “The hallways are always too crowded and if they gave, like, a little bit more time, like, 2 minutes, it would be way less crowded.”
However, not everyone I interviewed seemed to agree that extra time is necessary for the students. Some said that students have plenty of time, but waste it. Others say that the issue is students mismanaging their time.
Mia Iyer, a JV junior, says “I like it. I think it’s a good amount of time, maybe more,” when asked about the time between classes. I asked how she manages her time during the passing period, to which she said “I go straight to my class. I read or sometimes I scroll on Tiktok.”
Mr. Khawaja, a D/C Government teacher at JV, was also asked how he felt about the time between classes. He said he thinks that students have enough time between classes and elaborated that, “There are students that get to class in 4 minutes, there are students, if you give them 15 minutes, they’re gonna be late to class. So it’s a case by case, really.” I then asked him what, in his opinion, could be done so that students can get to class more efficiently, to which he replied, “I think if we put the classes closer to each other, I think that would cut down on the travel time.”
Ms. Wiley, the principal of JV, seemed to feel that there is plenty of time between classes for students. I also asked her if she thinks that tardy sweeps are the most efficient policy that we have to get students to class on time, to which she said, “They have proven effective. When we started them last spring, we saw over 50% reduction in our incidents of skipping as well as other substance abuse.” I then asked her about the most common reason that students are late to which she responded, “They want to come out to the cafeteria, want to go see or do whatever, lose track of time, and really the six minutes isn’t designed for socializing.”
To these claims, all I have to say is that not everyone has the privilege to waste their time, not everyone has close classes or doesn’t use the restroom between classes. I think that it is worth it to add an extra minute for those students who struggle to be on time because of things like student traffic in the hallways, restroom lines, or far apart classes.
I am a part of the student population that has classes in either the back hallways or the portables, and I can speak from experience when I say that I often struggle to make it to my classes on time because of the distance. I can also say that the restroom lines are a real problem and do affect my ability to make it to class on time if I need to stop.
Essentially, the students at Jersey Village High School can benefit as a whole if there were to be an addition of 1 or 2 minutes to the passing period. Students should not have to worry about getting to class on time because of things like classes being too far apart, waiting in line for the bathroom, or even student traffic in the hallways because school is ultimately meant for learning and bettering ourselves, not rushing with 6 minutes between classes.
