Do MA students have a say at school?

It was a bright and sunny spring day during fourth-period chemistry. Sophomores had just had the weight of their big unit test taken off their shoulders and were sitting out on the science learning patio. Students were laughing, basking in the sun, while talking about what would soon be their junior year, when someone mentioned the most effective change that would be applied for the upcoming school year.

No late start.

The news shared brought back the enormous disappointment for the students basking in the warmth of the sun. But for one student, this brought new disappointment.

“Wait, what?” shouted sophomore Aniq House in disbelief.

“I want to be able to have time to sleep in and be more prepared for the school day,” said House after finding out about the sea of change that would affect all of his Tuesdays in his junior year.

Zander Bergstrom, House’s fellow chemistry classmate, recalled how he felt in the moment that he found out about the switch.

“I was just really confused and like frustrated,” said Bergstrom, “I mean, I’m sure a lot of people, not just me, like sleeping in. I live a lot farther away than a lot of people at school. It’s already a 30-minute drive. So I love that extra hour that I can just study and stay up a little later. And now that’s gonna be taken away.”

This announcement has changed the way students feel about the school listening to their voices when making changes.

Minnehaha Academy (MA), a small Christian school located in South Minneapolis, focuses on having ‘exceptional education’, which is shown through student opportunities such as Model UN and speech team.

Along with superior education, MA prides itself on being ‘distinctly Christian,’ which they fulfill through mandatory Bible class as well as a weekly chapel for the entire student body. Both are things that many students and families love and appreciate about the school.

Minnehaha has a great reputation and is advertised widely through Spotify ads as well as various billboards placed within the Twin Cities. Despite advertising these core values, seemingly the main focus seems to be on having a ‘caring community’.

Yet with various upcoming changes and previous schedule adjustments, students are concerned if their voices and opinions are truly being heard within the ‘caring community’ that is so widely focused on.

Late Start

Late start is on Tuesdays, where students have extra time before school starts. School hours start at 8:25 a.m, but on a late start Tuesday, school begins at 9:15 a.m.

Late start first originated in 2016 as a time for teachers to have meetings, a time when all staff would be available with no interruptions.

“I’m a student athlete, and a late start benefits me, because if I have a practice on Monday night, I’ll be able to study,” said Affeldt. “Our school is so rigorous, we have homework, and other extracurricular activities; it’s just an awful mix.”

This extra time doesn’t seem like much, but to students it truly means a lot.

“I was so mad because I knew they didn’t talk to us (students) about it, because I know that they would have, they would have automatically had it rejected by every student that they talked to,” said Affeldt. “Not a single student that I’ve talked to at this school has said we should get rid of it.”

To administration, they focus on what is efficient and what makes the most sense for the students. When deciding to remove late start, the school turned to the numbers; they simply measured how many students arrived at school significantly before the start time on late start Tuesdays.

While students value the time, the administration believes it’s a time of missed opportunity.

Before being hired for his current position, Blake Mayes, the assistant principal, worked previously for the school as a guidance counselor, working closely with students.

“The reality was, just counting by hand, not knowing how many kids are in band or choir, anything that isn’t happening directly. Just counting people in the commons. Over half of the students are there, no matter what time it starts,” said Mayes. “So if our students are indirectly telling us, Hey, we’re coming to school, we’re ready to go, let’s get going, and we’ll do our meetings later on, because that’s centering the student rather than a faculty perspective or opinion or preference.”

Academic Power Hour

Before the announcement of the elimination of the greatly appreciated late start, the school made an abrupt decision to adjust what has been known as the Academic Power Hour for various years.

This altered students’ ability to have free rein over what they did during “Academic Power Hour’.

Academic Power Hour in the past was a time on Thursdays for students to work on schoolwork and socialize with classmates in common spaces throughout the school building.

The school recently shifted the time of Academic Power Hour into a supervised worktime where students (not including seniors) would be assigned randomly or at the request of teachers to different classrooms each week.

“I don’t think (the change) has anything to do with trying to keep orders. I think it is just trying to keep kids on track, because they can get easily distracted, especially like I’ve definitely gotten personally distracted, and when I should have been working during Power Hour,” said sophomore Roman Inestroza, who, like his classmates, takes great pride in his academics.

“I mean, it’s always been focused on academics, and that’s fine, but a lot of the time people don’t actually need to focus on their academics, and they feel like it’s kind of just a waste of time,” said Affeldt, a sophomore student and athlete at Minnehaha. “I’ve had a few Power Hours where I’ve literally just like, sat on YouTube the entire time because I haven’t had any homework,” said Affeldt.

The switch has left many students upset, but also understanding.

“What a lot of people don’t like about it (the new Academic Power Hour) is that you don’t really have a lot of freedom,” said Affeldt.

Previously, freedom was something that the school shared with parents and Minnehaha Middle Schoolers, as they would soon start at the high school, though this is still true with the two Flex periods built into the schedule; the elimination of the known Academic Power Hour leaves students feeling unheard.

Flex, like the original Academic Power Hour, is a time for students to study and socialize, a time when clubs and intramural activities occur.

“I think it wouldn’t have hurt. I think that asking students how they felt about that might have been helpful. Maybe taking a different approach, like a separate initiative, would have been better,” said Inestroza.

Although there seem to be pros and cons to how students feel about the Academic Power Hour shift, the lack of communication shown to students has left a ripple.

Minnehaha has made it clear that they want to create a space where teenagers feel known, and it is a space where they can ‘cultivate their potential’.

Responding to students

Toby Castle, Minnehaha Upper School Principal, has a lot to say regarding the recent and upcoming changes that are happening within the school. Regardless of it being Castle’s first year at the school, he cares deeply about the students and helping them to prepare for their bright futures.

“My role here is to discern how students can cultivate agency as best they can. So use the power they have to choose what they want to do, not independently, but in community,” said Castle when asked about the change of Academic Power Hour. “We’re agents in a community being cultivated by who we are, what we want to do, and who we do it with.”

When thinking about the next year, they really had to think about the effect it was making on students.

“We call it Academic Power Hour, we really have to think, what does that mean? And are we meeting those words, or do we need to just call it another flex and then build structures in that? But yeah, we’re always evaluating what makes most sense for the community,” said Mayes.

Overall, students know the school cares and has a ‘caring community,’ but they wish they could have had more say.

With the concern of students, both Castle and Mayes are open and looking for ways that they could improve student voice within the school.

“What we would like to see here at Minnehaha is the establishment of a student leadership team,” said Castle. “We would like to call it student council or student leadership council.”