We would like to convey to the LVJUSD district board that additional Wednesday class time is both unneeded and increasing the stress levels in students. 

Based on the survey that a multitude of students and parents filled out (6171 participants), the students expressed that they were incredibly stressed.

Rather than helping, in response, the district added more class time.  This would take the place of the student-directed learning in which we would attempt to finish our homework in order to lift the weight of the stress on our shoulders. 

The extra time on Wednesdays allowed students who were behind to catch up, and the number of students behind in their classes has been increasing rapidly. 

While the attempt to combat this with more instructional time seems sensible, it actually is damaging to the students who have to deal with the schedule changes, and a growing number of assignments with a shrinking time period to complete them in. 

We have created this petition in order to illustrate our concern with the additional instruction time taking the place of our student-directed learning. 

Teachers will also use this opportunity to assign more homework even though the time to do that very homework has been replaced with school hours. More assignments and more school time was not the answer to the issue.  

“I really enjoy that Wednesday is a free day. It gives me time to finish a lot of my work and do extra work so I can get ahead.”

This was marked as one of the "top thoughts" in the survey, meaning that most people agreed with it. However, the district did not seem to take this into account. 

Other exceptional quotes in the "top thoughts" section include:

"What's going well is how supportive the teachers are being, but I feel weighed down with the amount of work I have to do. I'm happy to know that I have so much support and help available, but I feel really stressed and rushed almost all the time."

Please take our request into consideration, 

The Middle-Schoolers of the LVJUSD school district