Two hurricanes hit Florida in the bay area –in the span of roughly two weeks—The trees are still down; flooded areas have caused many changes to school schedules throughout Hillsborough County Public Schools, yet they still want school to continue.
Due to two hurricanes hitting the Tampa Bay area how will the make-up days impacted both students and teachers. What they will do to combat this. Was this the best option to make up for the missed time during the hurricanes? Trees are still down, in Downtown Tampa, yet they still want school to continue.
“The way that they are making up the days are not too bad, we are losing the strawberry festival day, and we are losing our early releases –which I don’t mind that– but at least we don’t have to go into June. I guess all-in-all if we must make them up– which I’m not a fan of– I’d rather it be this than losing some of our breaks and going into June.” Mr. Channels said (CTE Teacher). Mr. Channels has been working at the school ever since it was built and is heavily involved with the school. Meaning he witnessed what the Florida Education Board did in 2004 when three hurricanes hit Florida within one year and they had to extend the school year into June. Channels believes this was one of the best options for making up the school days, based on his experiences throughout previous years.
Students at freedom weren’t present during 2004 they weren’t similar with the possibility of the school year being extended into June. One of the biggest changes to the schedules are the removal of all the early release days, which most students aren’t in favor of to make up for lost time during the hurricane “We do have time to make up, we don’t have specific days to make it up the time, because we’re having an extra hour of school that we wouldn’t have a week” said Julia Guilarte (11). Students still have all of their breaks and exams will be removed depending upon each student’s grade and class they are taking. “I’m so very grateful that we have all our breaks still. This is because I use this time to spend time with my family.”
“They’re adding more time, but all it’s doing is making us less motivated because there is an increase in school-time moving forward.” Guilarte said (11).
