EDITORIAL:

It’s always important to teachers and staff that students arrive to school and classes on time and avoid being absent. Recently, starting in the spring semester of the 2016 – 2017 school year, certain incentives have been given to students in order to get them more motivation to not skip class and avoid tardies.

Though these incentives might appeal to some, many students aren’t quite sure how they feel about it.

The major incentives are the availability of painting personal parking spots for seniors, exemptions on finals, and more off period opportunities.

Many current senior students feel that these incentives are unfair or don’t matter because they won’t get much of a chance to take advantage of them. Other students feel that the drawbacks, such as all the effort of getting these incentives, outweigh the benefits.

As far as the parking spots go, in order for one to achieve the title of “owning” a parking spot they must have at least 15 credits, have no more than 12 class period absences in the whole Spring 2016 semester and no more than four absences in a single class period during the 2016 Spring semester

Students also have to pay $20 for their spot, plus the additional cost of getting a permit to park in the Bowie parking lot, and the cost of paint. Students find the fact that they must pay so much money for a simple parking spot isn’t worth the trouble.

Parking at Bowie is already difficult enough and it’s going to make it even more difficult for students to find a spot if people are reserving spots even if they aren’t using them.

Bowie is too large of a school for this to work out without having major problems. Such as people arguing over spots, students having to park in the church or in the neighborhoods because they can’t take other people’s “territory”.

Another incentive, the semester exam incentive, also brings controversy. Students are given the advantage of having the opportunity to change their grade for their final if their semester average is higher and if they have no more than three absences, to get higher than a 90, two absences to get higher than an 80, and only one absence to get higher than a 70.

The idea of being allowed to change a grade that counts as a whole six weeks is a wonderful idea, but so many people have been absent for three days already so the incentive doesn’t affect them at all.

Also, students still have to take the final even If they plan to change their grade, which seems to be a waste of time. And, some semester classes or AP classes don’t count which takes out a big chunk of this incentive.

The last incentive is the opportunities for off periods. Now, this incentive isn’t really about the benefits. This incentive is much more of a threat. In order for a student to be eligible for an off period, students must demonstrate acceptable attendance. Also, if a student has poor attendance, off periods can be revoked; this incentive is a shallow idea because students already skip classes even with or without an off period.

Even though off periods don’t count as an actual class students enjoy them and shouldn’t be forced into taking a class that they don’t need or wouldn’t enjoy.

Though these incentives have a lot of benefits and motivate a lot of students, that does not conceal the fact that these incentives are slightly unrealistic and take away and threaten more than they provide.

These so called “incentives” don’t have much purpose and shouldn’t continue in the future of this school