When I first heard that our school was implementing “Silent Sustained Reading” into its FLEX schedule, I immediately wondered if they would be reintroducing nap time, recess, and snack time into our schedule as well.  While those programs might be more welcome by some of my peers, the fact remains that none of these belong at the high school level and are best left in lower levels of schooling.

 Of course, aside from the fact that we are no longer five years old, there are a multitude of reasons that SSR is a massive waste of time, contrary to the statements made in somewhat amusing promotional videos released by the staff or Student Council Association (sorry Robert Report).

 My biggest qualm with SSR is that it interferes with students in honor societies, and subsequently, people who need tutoring.  As a member of an honor society, a student must log a certain amount of hours by tutoring their peers in FLEX.  Where it was once possible to log an hour and a half of FLEX tutoring, SSR has cut this by 20 minutes.  On days where we have advisory, SSR has been even more detrimental, leaving only about 25 minutes for tutoring.  This makes it harder for students to fulfill the requirements needed to remain a member of an honor society.  However, this also hurts the students who need tutoring, as their time to learn or study the material has been reduced as well.  I’m sorry, but if a student does not understand the material that will be on a biology test, that should take precedence over reading for 20 minutes, especially since that test is being graded, unlike SSR.

 Another problem is that if students need to FLEX to a teacher, this time is also limited.  Believe it or not, students miss school sometimes and need to find out what they missed.  Sometimes they do not get the material and need to ask questions.  Sometimes they need to take a retake (due to missing the original test, or retaking due to a bad grade, which our school is allowing more).  Whatever the case, SSR hampers the ability of the student to meet with the teacher.  Students have less time to catch up on missed material, ask questions, and retake anything.  Teachers have less time to ensure that the student knows the material, and to administer retakes.

 Retakes especially clash with SSR, and I don’t just mean retaking a test because you screwed it up badly.  I’m also talking about people who were absent because they were ill, which isn’t always their fault.  Regardless, SSR limits the times that it is possible to take a retake, or make up a missed test.  Unfortunately, many tests also require a full hour and a half.  This means one of several things.  Either students making up a test or retaking it will have less time to take it (hardly fair), students and teachers will have to come into school early or stay late to ensure a fair allotment of time, thus inconveniencing both in many cases, or teachers will have to change the way their tests are organized.  Whatever the case, somebody clearly didn’t think this through.

 Under a mask of “improving vocabulary,” or “promoting reading,” SSR is actually a hindrance to our school, and a good education at the high school level in general.  It limits the ability of students to learn what they need, get hours for honor societies, or take a test they missed.  But hey, who cares if you failed that AFM test, compromising your chances to pass the class, and damaging your GPA?  You get 20 minutes to improve vocabulary for the SAT, a test that won’t matter to you if you don’t have the grades to get into college anyway.

 Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for reading, but if more pressing matters need to be taken care of, then those need to take precedence, especially if those matters pertain to actual grades.  The ungraded SSR is the least of my priorities in a schedule with five AP courses, two other work-heavy classes, multiple extracurricular activities, eating, and getting some form of sleep so I don’t lose my sanity (last one might be too late).

 At the end of the day, SSR isn’t going away anytime soon.  For everyone’s sake though, I hope the upper echelon of school officials realize how big of a mistake they have made with the program though, because mark my words: everyone gets screwed.