Liberty High School is a warm and welcoming place for everyone who attends. But school sometimes isn’t always so enjoyable for the students. School should be a fun learning experience for everyone but sometimes that just isn’t the case. There are some things at Liberty that we could change to improve the overall experience for the students.

High school can be a very stressful place for students. We are constantly reassured that we need to get good grades, go to college, get good jobs and have extracurricular activities. How are we supposed to do all of this without breaking under pressure? There are some ways that we can make Liberty a less stressful environment for its students.

There are a lot of good things at Liberty High. For example, students get five minutes between classes to get to their next class, see their friends and use the restroom. It’s a lot better than having to stay in one class for the whole day. We all have a lot of freedom here. We get to pick where we want to sit at lunch, we get to move classrooms, we also have a lot of opportunities to see our friends. While there are some good factors about Liberty, there are also some bad factors.

Students receive homework in almost every class on a daily basis. Having that much homework each night is stressful. We are all still expected to get a full night sleep, have extracurricular activities, get good grades and spend time with family and friends. How are teenagers supposed to handle all of this stress from school? We are all so focused on doing all of the homework and getting good grades that we aren’t even really learning anything. If Liberty students had less homework, it would be easier on all of us. If there was a cut back on the amount of homework being handed out daily, then students would have a better chance of getting full sleep, good grades and making time for other things outside of school.

Two times a month Liberty has a late start Monday. I believe that we should have these days more often. On normal school days, class starts at 7:15 a.m. This is way too early for the human brain to even start functioning properly. Neuroscientists from Oxford found that the average teenage brain starts functioning around 10 a.m. This time is closer to our late start schedule. On late start Mondays, school starts at 9:15, two hours later than usual. This time is much better than the normal and would most likely help us improve. If our school started later, our test scores would improve and so would our overall grades.

If we had late starts, we could also get more sleep. According to Nationwide Children’s Organization, teenagers are supposed to get 9 1/2 hours of sleep every night. Getting 9 1/2 hours of sleep is almost impossible for the average high school student. With less homework and later starts, that could be a good start to getting more sleep. Once we all have more sleep, our grades, and test scores would go up.

Liberty is an amazing school with awesome learning opportunities for all of us. If we had late starts daily, less homework and less pressure on us, the school would be a lot more tolerable. The school environment could be improved but it’s still a safe and welcoming environment.