Few students may bother to read the handbook; however, there have been several changes for this year. A very noticeable new addition to the handbook is the phone rule.
The teachers now have to provide a pouch or similar station for students to store their phones while teaching is in progress. Many students, including the writers, thought this would be much worse than it is in reality. Some schools have started using magnetic pouches for the students to store their phones in. At the end of the day, the school unlocks the pouches to let the students have access to their phones. Thankfully, EPG’s policy is much less severe than that. When asked about her least favorite new policy, senior Reese Baner said, “The phone rule, because we need to learn how to use our time wisely. In the real world, no one will take away our phones, and we’ll have to learn to stop ourselves from getting distracted.”
One change that may be added in the future is no headphones during class. While current headphone rules vary depending on the teacher, this may change to a full school-wide ban on headphones due to state regulations.
Another change that has been made is the attendance/finals policy. If you have at least a 95% attendance rate and above an 83% in the class, you can be exempted from taking the finals. Principal Landers remarked, “I don’t want the finals to seem like a punishment to take, but rather a reward to not take them. Everyone has to, but if you do these things, you get rewarded by not taking them.” Every class is required to have a final exam, including PE and choir. These exams should include an overview of the whole semester.
Another thing that has changed as of this year is Driver’s Ed attendance. Last year, a student could miss four days before being dropped from class. As of this school year, students can only miss two days because the four days were for the whole semester. However, when Driver’s Ed was cut down to a quarter-length class, they originally didn’t cut down the days.
The last handbook change is the sign-out rules for after-school extracurricular activities. If you leave for any reason other than an appointment, then you are unable to participate in your activity even if you come back. Before, the rule was that if a student missed more than half of the school day, they couldn’t participate in extracurriculars.
With the numerous changes to the handbook this year, hopefully, students understand what the exact changes are and the reasoning behind them.
