No Knotts? Hooray!

Those Teachers and Students Need to Work, Not Play!

Well it’s about time!

Finally CUSD has the good sense to cancel that ridiculous senior Knott’s trip.

For far too long freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have been taking STAR tests while seniors took a day off to frolic around Knott’s Berry farm, wasting a valuable day of potential instructional time.

Worse still, teachers of seniors were invited on this trip as “chaperones,” while other teachers stayed behind to administer tests to the hard-working students who stayed behind.

In all my years of teaching I have never heard of anything more ridiculous. If the senior class of San Juan Hills wants to take a day to go off and have fun together with their teachers let them do it on a Saturday or a Sunday instead of wasting time and taxpayer dollars on non-instructional activities.

Why did this even happen in the first place and why did it end? Because of STAR testing someone thought that seniors (who are not tested) needed something else to do other than learn. With the end of STAR testing, and an already late start to the school year, there is no longer any valid reason why seniors and their teachers should not be a school doing what they should be doing along with everyone else.

Students, especially those involved in AP courses, should be more worried about reaching their academic goals and passing their AP tests in a shorter amount of prep time than in playing around some amusement part.

Some seniors complain that it’s their turn to enjoy this day of authorized truancy because they put their best effort in on the STAR tests. But those don’t exist anymore in the way they used to and it’s high time everyone realize that. In addition, everyone who did well enough on those tests could claim a grade bump. That’s their reward.

Other seniors say it isn’t fair that other classes got to go and they don’t. How about all the teachers who stayed behind and never got to go. How is it fair to them?