As the school year starts to get into full swing, so does the new early release Mondays. The question is, what do people prefer more the new early release Mondays, or the late arrival Mondays? 

Late arrival Mondays haven’t happened in a few years so lets catch up on them. For starters, they happened on the last 3 Mondays of each month and days would start at 8:25 instead of 7:25, so it gave drivers and upperclassmen an extra hour of sleep. Now for Early Release Mondays, they are only going to happen 8 times this year and instead of leaving school at the normal two pm, students will leave at 11:25am and on even period days, students with lockout will be able to leave at 10:25am.

The real question is, which do students prefer more? 

“Late arrival was nice because it allowed more sleep. Senior Tyler Power says “This causes less stress on a lot of Mondays and even Sunday nights when you don’t need to worry about waking up early the next day”. When talking to students the main point of this response was how late arrival gave you the ability to have more sleep going into Monday morning and it was a stress reliever on sunday nights. 

Does that extra hour of sleep really matter that much? BBC Worklife says it can, “Because if you can squeeze in even an extra hour, it will almost certainly make you look better, feel better and be better at your job”. Coming into school on a Monday morning with that extra hour of sleep seems to be very beneficial.

Senior Luke Mawhinney said “I feel more motivated to get through the day knowing I’ll have more free time after school,”. When talking to students about early release, free time was the most important aspect of the new early release, as now students have more free time to get their work done and even other work as well.

Senior Emma Metevier said “I value more free time then sleep so that I can be more productive”. When talking to students about this topic they seemed to be split, while some liked the free time others enjoyed that extra sleep they got on Monday mornings.

 Senior Tyler Power says “I tend to value more free time because I am a person who can function with less sleep but I could see how other people can think the other way”. 

Overall, it’s seen that students share different opinions on South Windsor High School’s late arrival and early release, but even though we may not have the one they prefer, students at South Windsor High School are happy with less school whatever form it comes in.