District 204 and building administrators decided to forgo Mustang Hour for the upcoming school year last Monday, citing uniformity issues between the district’s three high schools.

Although the data collected from the pilot surveys showed 70 percent of teachers and 80 percent of students favored keeping Mustang Hour, the decision was not limited to our school alone. After much debate, administrators decided that incorporating the teacher-implemented idea of a weekly study period would not be adopted at Neuqua and Waubonsie.

“They want all three high schools to have a perfectly uniformed schedule to the minute,” committee member and teacher Ann Cluxton said.

The Mustang Hour committee, made up of Cluxton, Adam Page, Sarah DePasquale, Josh Robinson, and Tania Moneim met multiple times with Dr. Louis Lee, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, and other administrators in hopes to keep Mustang Hour.

“We looked intensely at instructional minutes in the classroom and if students were truly going to be engaged in working with teachers in a productive use of time, not just cruising the building,” Cluxton said.

Other major elements discussed at the meeting were attendance, teacher input, and use of time. Concerned about the number of students who tried to leave the building or skip class, teachers knew accountability would be difficult.

“Being accountable for the instructional minutes that we have all the time was probably the biggest deal. They are more concerned about what we are doing with those instructional minutes. Some teachers were nervous that Mustang Hour would take away from what they were doing in the classroom,” Robinson said. “They didn’t really see that it could do wonderful things. I think it was a great intervention for the kids,” Robinson added.

As well as some teachers, many students are disappointed by this decision, seeing that they benefited from the study period.

“I don’t see why they denied us this opportunity because a lot of students liked it and it worked for a lot of students. It gave me time to talk to my teachers outside of classes which is easier because I didn’t have to rush from period to period. I actually got to get some work done that I was behind on,” freshman Maddie Doninger said.

At University of Chicago High School, teachers introduced the idea of a study period not once a week, but every day. The results were positive. According to The Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education the results from University of Chicago High School, “It is surprising how rapidly some students improve who seem to have no habits of study when they come at first.”

One of the reasons that idea was so successful at University of Chicago High School was because teachers that are busy throughout the day or have classes during lunch periods are readily available during this designated period. For students at Metea facing the same issues, Mustang Hour could have been a solution.

“I feel like Mustang Hour was very beneficial. I was able to get math and physics help since my teachers usually aren’t available during my lunch period,” junior Kristy Yaeger said.

However, some teachers had concerns following the Mustang Hour pilots.

“I thought there was better ways to use the time than taking it away from class time. I didn’t think everyone was using the time that they were given for school. I think if everyone got used to it then eventually it could’ve been useful, but the two times that we did it it was just kind of there,” science teacher Scott Headley said.

As for Neuqua and Waubonsie, both schools are aware of the impact Mustang Hour had on Metea.

“We invented it here and we piloted it here. They’re aware of what we did. They have our data, so it’s their choice if they would like to pilot it. Nobody’s telling them no, but our teachers came up with it first and we kind of owned it,” principal Dr. Darrell Echols said.

Despite failed efforts, the Metea staff is not giving up on new innovative ways to improve our education.

“We’re still looking at some alternative to [Mustang Hour] because we would like to do something like it in the future, but for now we are just not able to. And who knows, we had a conversation about it at the principal’s meeting last week and I think everybody realizes that we need something, and who knows what will happen down the road,” Echols said.
By Ashley Walker