A new flextime manager, SOS Time, has been implemented at Highlands High School. The idea of flextime was developed in the 2022-2023 school year.
Opportunities for flextime vary from board games and class-wide trivia to getting extra help with a class. Highlands takes pride in recognizing its students’ desires.
“Sitting still and listening is one of the hardest things, it’s hard for anyone really – but if you can go to the gym and run around or shoot some baskets or whatever, get that energy out. It clears your mind and it’s so healthy for you then you can come back and be ready to learn some more,” said Assistant Principal Jennifer Forgy.
In previous years, Highlands used these 30 minutes for a student to go to the designated class period that differed by the day. By putting SOS Time into effect, students are now able to go to any class that they choose within this time frame.
Last year’s Flextime system had different complications on its own. One was the fact that the program was based across the country, so whatever minor or even major problem was occurring, chances are the solution wouldn’t go into immediate effect.
The updated program for Flextime is known as SOS Time. SOS Time is locally based. This was a tremendous benefit since the developers could be easily contacted and address the problem right away.
SOS works in correlation with Infinite Campus and includes multiple benefits.
According to Business teacher and SBDM (Site Based Decision Making) member, Jaime Richey, “SOS is a whole new program that we are using. With SOS it works with Infinite Campus and that will be very helpful especially when taking attendance and other features.”
This is an extremely helpful attribute as the previous program’s attendance log did not effectively work in correlation with Infinite Campus.
For example, in the 2022-2023 school year, there were, “pages and pages of people who looked like they were skipping and they weren’t,” said Forgy.
Because of the attendance issues, it was time for a change.
However, some students were unhappy with the change from Flextime Manager to SOS Time.
Students created a petition longing for the Flextime Manager to return. The goal of this petition is to let students voice their opinions to the school and make the change official.
So far this petition has received 38 signatures.