Middle schoolers & High schoolers in Capousd schools can’t go to school for more than 2 1/2 days because they don’t have the budget to hire more teachers which is honestly ridiculous in my opinion. I believe our government has the money & should be able to help us pay for more teachers already. I know many students like me, i’m an incoming 10th grader in this school district, & many parents too who are incredibly upset with this scheduling. I know for a fact that it will be difficult for many kids to learn the subjects they enter with an on & off schedule with a face to face teacher. This is ridiculous that we have money to create a new City hall in Laguna Niguel or to spend thousands of dollars to keep the plants looking nice in the city of Aliso Viejo. The Feds have 5 Trillion dollars to support the Stock market & trillions more for businesses but they don’t have money for our kids education? I understand the money comes from different sources but us kids are the future. There’s just an area that doesn’t sit right in my heart when it comes to only doing school for 2 1/2 days because we can’t afford to hire more teachers to have all 5 days. We already lost all of our school activities, school plays, all sports, a way to get up in the morning & keep our selfs organized & presentable, an excuse to see our friends & stay active, & make memories, all of that is already cut everywhere but the Gov can’t give our schools more money to afford more teachers? That’s incredibly bizarre to me. Our education was always taught to be our number one priority but our government doesn’t seem to care as much as everyone says. Many kids use school as an escape or a place to be who they want to be. We aren’t a third world country, we have the power to make a different in our schools, to make them better & to afford all five days. If us kids don’t get the right access to learning, I know we won’t be at our full potential of learning & that many of us will cheat just to pass because of the difficulty in learning between online & home. It was already incredibly hard to learn the last few lessons during the online part of the school year, I do not know one student who didn’t cheat on a few things just so they can pass because they had no idea what they were learning because it was either to difficult to take in cause of the environment they were in or that doing online work without a teacher right by them to guide them was just hard in general. The mix of students & teachers in each class all gave me different experiences. There was always something about each teachers teaching ways that made me want to work harder & there was always that group of students who made being in a classroom enjoyable while still getting access to a good education every single day & when I say that, I speak for almost everyone. Sadly, that’s being flushed down the toilet because we can’t afford to hire more teachers to keep all five days. Online school is not for everyone, I choose to go to school instead of doing online or partial online because I know I will get my full learning potential that way. This is why we stick with the options of students being able to choose what they want to do with their education, We always had the option of choosing all online with an excuse, wether if it’s because a student learns better that way or because he or she has another job to do & has to do online school just to manage their time, or to maybe do one or two subjects online during the school year to manage time for work but still come all 5 days of school just to see their friends & interact with teachers, but at the end of the day, most of us always go for all five days because it’s easier for us to learn that way & to see everyone. Now to speak for our parents who are also upset. Many parents can’t afford to keep their kid at home alone either because their at work all day & they have nobody to take care of them or if their child is struggling in a subject, they won’t know how to help them like a certified teacher can & the student will just struggle even more. Parents don’t have the same patience like a teacher does when it comes to teaching their kids a certain subject. I took all my 6 teachers for granted, I am incredibly thankful for every teacher who keeps up with the many students every single day. A lot of students including myself went to a trusted teacher for help or advice when we were going through something we couldn’t speak to our parents about & we create deep bonds with them & to just see them every day kept a sort of peace in my mind knowing i can go to them when i need them, sort of like a safety net but it guides you into the right direction. Those teachers are the ones who keep me going to be successful in life. Each unique teacher teaches me a different life lesson that sticks with me for the rest of my life. Not having the full five days doesn’t give us the right learning environment, it doesn’t let us get comfortable & feel safe with the area we are in if we are constantly switching between school & home, it just feels flustering. Do you really think a lot of students are going to use their days at home to do school work besides homework like they do at school, most definitely not, a lot of students don’t even do their homework in general so that’s going to impact their learning deeply already. Going to school automatically puts us in a learning mind set even if I don’t feel like learning that day, being there forced me to learn just because of the place i’m surrounded by. Being at home doesn’t put me in the same mindset because I usually go home with the information I retained at school to do my homework then slack off for the rest of the day & get ready for the next school day. I hope most of what I’m saying proves a point that we need more funding from our gov to hire more teachers & keep all full 5 days of school. If you are worried about crowded halls, we can use part of the fundings for more portables. We can separate the schools into parts with a certain amount of people in each area instead of doing partial days. Or if we get the extra portables, we can separate students with the same schedule into one class & rotate the teachers while keeping a 5 day schedule. Please sign this petition so we can reach that goal & hopefully make a difference. All with love- An incoming 10th grader in the Capousd school district.