It’s the time of year when school policies are beginning to be cracked down on, and one that highly irritates students is the 15-15 rule. We’ve all come to live with the dress code, tardy and IDs policies because they’ve been strictly enforced for so long that they have become habit.

The 15-15 policy means that a student may not leave class for any reason in the first and last fifteen minutes of class. This means not being able to go to the bathroom, fill up water bottles, etc. Passing period is meant to be used for bathroom breaks, filling up water, and taking care of whatever business that can’t be attended to during lunch while still making it to class in the allotted five minutes.

Many students are actively involved in multiple clubs throughout the week during block lunch and have little time to take care of remedial things such as going to the bathroom because it is becomes a back burner to tutoring, unfinished homework, and eating lunch around clubs.

While the 15-15 rule shouldn’t be an issue for third period because of block lunch, what about the rest of the day? Some students have to go from one side of the school to the other and only have a minute or two to spare, so they don’t have time to go to the bathroom and then have to wait at least an additional 15 minutes to go.

The philosophy behind the 15-15 policy is so teachers can begin class preparing students for what they are going to learn or do in class. However, many teachers spend 15 to 20 minutes waiting for students to arrive from Harmon and Killough. Teachers are already taking time out of class to wait for students to arrive for class to begin, so students should be allowed to go the the bathroom during that down time.

Because of buses and the transition time after lunch or passing period, it takes a little bit of time for students to get settled and class to begin. If students were to go to the bathroom during that transition time, they would spend more time in class during actual instruction time. It creates a much better atmosphere for students to be in class for instructional time and then go to the bathroom during their work time because they are then taking away from their time and not the teachers.

Towards the end of class, it is common for students to be working on their class work for the day. In that case, students should be allowed to go to the bathroom even if it is the last 15 minutes of class because it is their work time and they will have to finish the class work at home if they don’t in class.

To alleviate the issue of students asking to go to the bathroom at the beginning of class and being told they can’t go to the bathroom because of the 15-15 rule, students should be allowed to go to the bathroom at the beginning and end of class. With classes commonly being slow at the beginning of class and winding down to the excitement of the bell, not a lot of work is often completed because students are socializing waiting for the bell to ring either signaling the beginning or end of class.