Last school year, administration decided on having a 45 minute period after first period for students to catch up on homework, missed work, or get tutoring. Administration called it Power 45, and it was every Wednesday. This year, administration has made some changes to Power 45 to better it for everyone.

The only big change to Power 45 is that instead of being every Wednesday, now it is every Tuesday and Thursday.

Principal Heather Venne said, “We decided on Tuesdays and Thursdays so that students could get a support period every other day of the school week.”

Teachers and administration felt that this change needed to be made so that students can get any extra enrichment and help that they might need.

Although some teachers had other ideas on how to make Power 45 better, no additional changes were made for this school year.

Among others, science teacher Bev Whiteford suggested an idea to put one of the two Power 45 periods at the end of the day. One reason for this suggestion was so students in sports would miss one less class if they left early.

Venne wanted to keep Power 45 at the beginning of the day so that the sports students could take full advantage of extra time to do work.

Similarly, science teacher Ryan Rupp and social studies teacher Scott Vojcsik also made the comment that students in athletics would miss less class time when leaving on Power 45 days if Power 45 was at the end of the day.

Likewise, senior Lily Dressel said she would prefer if Power 45 was at the end of the day rather than in the beginning. “If Power 45 was at the end of the day, students could get homework done from that day, guaranteeing students will have homework to do.”

In addition, Rupp thought having Power 45 at the end of the day would be a good idea, because he thought having Power 45 at the end of the day would let students get homework done before they leave school.

With Power 45 in the morning, some students might not have any work to do. There are some students who do not have much to do in the mornings, because they already completed their homework.

If one Power 45 occured in the afternoon, then those students would have homework to do because almost every student gets homework on any given day of the school week.

When asked what he would change, senior Jacob Schubert said, “I would make Power 45 be on Monday and Friday so that students would have less homework to do over the weekend.”

An example of that would be having a project due on Monday night; and that student may only get Friday evening, Saturday, and Sunday to work on such project. However, if Power 45 would be on Monday and Friday, that student would get an hour and a half more time to work on a project, and that goes a long way.

In addition, another idea came from Technology teacher Mike Snyder; he said “I suggested having class meetings during Power 45 so that there would be less disruption from learning.”

Administration entertained this idea last year, however, that did not occur. In regard to this year, Venne said that there still has not been any decision made about whether that might happen in the future.

One final idea that Rupp had was quite unique. His last idea builds on his prior idea of having Power 45 at the end of the day. “Power 45 could be used as a reward for upperclassmen that maintain a certain GPA, and they could leave school early on those Power 45 days.”

While there is room for the program to grow, Venne said she has no plans to change Power 45 in this year’s foreseeable future.