Power Hour is a staple at Tahoma High School. There are few schools in the nation that set aside an hour a day for student self-directed enrichment. Unfortunately, following many incidents at Tahoma High School, Power Hour has been canceled for the month of October. This leaves many people within the community wondering, what happened? To answer this question I went to Tahoma High School Principal Mr. Duty.

Mr. Duty explained that even before the year began people were skeptical about Power Hour. The Tahoma District has a COVID safety committee, from the beginning this committee was skeptical of Power Hour and urged the high school to consider alternatives. To the district’s credit, they fought back against this and the students were able to start the year off with a Power Hour. The first sign that Power Hour might not work this year was the food truck incident. During this significant event, four food trucks were lined up outside of the school, and not only was there a fight between students, but many students were late to class while they waited for their food. Some question if there was any way for this Power Hour to be successful. Yes, the food trucks were a fun idea, but there are many obvious problems that can occur with putting so many students into such a small area. Additionally, it is quite difficult for students to be back to class on time if they are in the middle of waiting for food they have already paid for. Mr. Duty also cited other issues that led to the ending of Power Hours such as students failing to follow COVID restrictions, destroying school property, and other fights that have happened throughout the year. Unlike the previously mentioned incidents, there is truly no excuse for students failing to follow COVID restrictions and getting into unnecessary trouble.

Many people, as well as Mr. Duty, attribute the root problems the school is facing to the fact that students have not had a regular school year for 2 years. Therefore many students have not had the opportunity to grow socially. Mr. Duty explains that this can make it hard for the administrators because, “the seniors are acting like sophomores, and the freshman are acting like 7th graders.” 

Many are worried that the disappearance of Power Hours will lead to the disappearance of many clubs at the high school. Now that Power Hour will only be on Wednesdays that leaves many teachers with only half an hour to interact with students. Many teachers will be using this time to help students with homework rather than hosting clubs, and this could be a potential end to a lot of clubs at Tahoma. Additionally, now that students only have 1 Power Hour A and 1 Power Hour B there is the possibility that students active in more than two clubs or activities will have to choose, which could lead to a dramatic decrease in the number of students participating in different clubs. Mr. Duty does not see the disappearance of Power Hour as a threat to Tahoma clubs. Duty insists that clubs will not be affected by the disappearance of Power Hour. He posits that students and teachers will simply need to follow the lead of other schools and participate in these clubs after or before school. Duty makes the same argument for students seeking academic aid, he also calls out many after-school tutoring and academic help article. While this does work for other schools, Tahoma students and staff are used to having clubs and getting help during school time, while also having to get to school a minimum of half an hour early or stay half an hour late will take a lot of adjustment; additionally for students who have jobs, don’t have a car, or have other out of school responsibilities getting to school early or staying late may prove to be impossible.

The administration has reiterated many times that to earn Power Hour back students need to demonstrate better behavior, and while this makes sense the concept of better behavior can be difficult for some students to grasp. Mr. Duty clarifies that better behavior during Power Hour means conforming to social distancing policies, something that none of the grades have been excelled at. As well as lowering the number of tardies for students coming back to Power Hour and decreasing the amount of vandalism to the school building. As a student, I don’t think that these conditions are excessive, but more importantly, I don’t think that they are unachievable. This school has gone through a lot over the years and while we have seen better days I have no doubt that we will be able to earn our Power Hour back if we just put a little bit of work in.