Study hall under spotlight at CHS

For most of today's adults, study hall was a routine part of the school day when they were in high school.

Central High School is changing that trend, and many would say rightly so.

Instead of giving all student grades 9 through 12 an hour free each day for study hall, administrators are limiting the opportunity to the school's highest performing students: those who are juniors or seniors, take at least one advanced-placement course and two high school honors courses, have a grade point average of 8.0 or higher on an 11-point scale, have a 95 percent attendance rate, are involved in one or more extracurricular activities and are endorsed by a former teacher, a guidance counselor and a school administrator.

Few would argue that teenagers with that kind of course load and performance would make anything but good use of an hour during the day to fit everything in.

But some parents say every high school student needs time to do homework during the day, whether they are getting excellent grades or not.

The students had that opportunity last year, and the year before, and the year before that.

A teacher who monitored the study hall sessions she supervised for four years found only 30 percent of the students used the time to study. The rest did not make productive use of their study-hall-time.

A study this year showed 80 percent of honors students used the time to study or do homework.

It appears Central's administrators made the decision to cancel general access to study hall after doing valid research. But they are taking another look at the issue at the request of parents. The real issue for some parents will be whether or not the study-hall guidelines are being applied fairly.