FIT sessions should be longer than 22 minutes.

At Bowie High School there is a 22-minute special class period called Flexible Instruction Time or FIT. In that 22 minutes, which comes right after the first class of the day, students can go to any class they sign up for and catch up on missing assignments or homework.

In my opinion, these 22 minute FIT sessions should be extended. Those 22 minutes are not enough time for students to get caught up or attend a tutoring session.

During this FIT time, students are supposed to get their missing assignments and homework done but, I feel like 22 minutes of FIT does not allow students to finish the work that they need. Homework and classwork take a lot longer than 22 minutes, we need more time to catch up sometimes.

Some school days there might be a certain situation where a student is delayed from doing their assignments in class or at home. The student has a chance to redeem themselves and make up their work in that FIT work time. But the time period in FIT is too short to get any assignments done.

A student can’t finish 20 math problems in those 22 minutes. Nor can a student write 400 words in that 22 minutes. We are known for having an amazing band program and great sports teams. This is one big reason that many students are behind, participation in extracurricular groups.

Students are constantly kept busy with practices for both their instruments and sports. These practices cause students to be busy outside of school and create a situation where students are not able to balance the academic work of eight classes.

I feel like if there were longer FIT sessions, then there is more of a chance to connect to other teachers and students. With these different connections, students can make Bowie have a friendlier environment.

A negative impact that having longer FIT sessions can have is that if students are all caught up on their assignments and some students don’t have to make up any of their school work, the longer FIT sessions could waste some of their academic learning time.

Bowie should have optional FIT sessions for students. That way the option to have optional FIT sessions should help students that need help and students that don’t need help with academics.