Access days are a new addition to the school curriculum during Life class. They happen once a week during sixth period and allow students to go to their other teachers during the entire class period to do things such as retaking and finishing tests, working on assignments, and receiving extra study time.

Access days can be and are very useful because I have an entire period to retake or finish something. Having an hour and a half to do things like this is convenient compared to doing them before or after school. Doing assignments and tests in the morning usually isn’t enough time for me, and doing tests after school is also hard due to the uncertainty of transportation. 

Additionally, access days provide students with extra study and work time with teachers and other peers. I’ve found that this study time is useful and has helped me get more time with my teacher than I would normally get.

That being said, access days fall short in some areas, such as the lack of enforcement. My teacher has never checked if we’re scheduled to leave for access days, and this leads to kids leaving class and not utilizing a flex period. 

Another issue is the engagement during the time. Previously, I’ve gone to these flex periods to study, and I notice the teachers are caught up in something else and often can’t be as attentive as they usually would be. This has caused me to wait longer than I normally would to have a question answered. Finally, another flaw with access days is that students can’t leave after they finish their work. I often find myself sitting and staring at my phone because I have nothing else to do when I’m done with the assignment. 

Regardless, access days have been very helpful to me in school. Saying they’re wasting time just isn’t accurate. When it comes to the wide variety of uses for access days, including study time, retaking tests, extra help from teachers, and more, it is useful to all students who need additional time. But when it’s abused by people skipping class, it becomes questionable. 

There’s also room for improvement in areas like teachers’ attention to the students. If teachers worked exclusively with students who come in on access days and did not also teach a Life class, this could be a solution. Overall, access days are useful but have a couple of kinks that need to be worked out.