*Opinions expressed in this article represent the views of the editorial board and not necessarily those of the school population or administration.

The current Falcon Time schedules are not long enough for students to get their work done and take the time to meet with their teachers. For the 2022-2023 school year, Falcon Time has changed to 19 minutes everyday, with the exception of Wednesdays for Advisory, on a rotating attachment to different periods. 

The purpose of Falcon Time is to provide students with unstructured time to catch up on work and meet with teachers, as well as take time for their mental health and build community. 

Changing Falcon Time to only a few days of the week but for longer periods of time would yield more positive results. Students would have a longer period of time to meet with their teachers and would be able to accomplish more with the extended period of time.

According to Brookings Institutes, high school teachers have reported assigning an average of 3.5 hours of homework per day, though completion of the homework depends on the student and the type of coursework. In addition, AP classes, which many students are currently taking, require more work outside of school, as the classes cover college-level coursework and need students to spend more time learning content. With students also engaged in extracurriculars and work, they need more time during the school day to finish their work.

While having Falcon Time everyday should reduce students’ workloads outside of school, many have reported that the current Falcon Time schedules have not allowed them enough time to do so.

“Basically, all it does is allows me to get started on something or get something ready to go for my next class but at that point, it’s not really effective,” says freshman Michael Gonzalez. “At least for Humanities work, the big ticket items are always paragraphs worth of essays and that stuff I can really only get done at home because it takes a few hours to both get into it and start cranking out some work. As for my other classes, I suppose in the 19 minutes I might be able to get through biology assignments and that’s about it.”

As for meeting with teachers, the current Falcon Time schedule doesn’t provide enough time for students to talk with their teachers and go over questions with them. Often, students don’t meet with teachers because of the lack of time and instead go during lunch.

“I haven’t met a teacher [during Falcon Time] just because I feel like it wouldn’t be productive or by the time I get there, there will only be five minutes left.” said senior Sarah Stanley

 While having a longer Falcon Time everyday may not be the most feasible, having that extended time reserved even for only a few days of the week is still more beneficial for students.