My teacher calls the 90-minute fifth period we have in lieu of Flex “the 80-year-long” class. The administration calls it “building communities.” My friends call it “so stupid.” And me? I call it “homework and study time,” though I am in the minority.

Without Flex, my time for academics is stretched thin, so my 35 minutes are spent silently working on homework. Sometimes I mourn the loss of my social life, but to what end?

Most of my class plays large card games like BS or interactive ones like Jenga and Mafia when our lesson is completed. Our desks shoved together in a big block remind me of a family dinner table; with people arguing and laughing and gossiping. Once in a blue moon we’ll have the aforementioned community building, which usually consists of a slideshow and then people passing around a stuffed otter with their one word answer.

I don’t hate my fifth period, and I appreciate the free time, limited though it is.

Laughter. Random conversations. Tutoring.

I walk into 5th period – knowing it will last 90 minutes – with excitement. Eight classmates and I are constantly reminded we are our teacher’s smallest but loudest class. We actually spend so much time focused on our classwork, I’ve yet to actually have any homework in fifth period.

I was skeptical during the first week how it would be to spend 90 minutes every day in my smallest class. But the consistent 6-7 jokes somehow still make our mostly junior class burst into laughter every day. After we all finish our assignments, we hold informal class discussions about who would survive the Hunger Games, intriguing history lessons and which number from 0-9 is the most irrelevant.

I get excited each day to walk into class and am sad when one of my eight classmates is missing for the day.

Having a core class for a fifth period is not ideal, especially for straight-A students who get all of their work done at the beginning of class. My classroom is unreasonably close to freezing temperatures. I also sit at a table all by myself at the back of class while everyone else sits with their friends and chats the whole time. Because I have C lunch, this means I have to go back to my freezing classroom after 30 minutes of freedom. This also means I’m sitting in class where I’m cold, hungry, tired and lonely.

My 5th period either stresses me out or is super chill. I have a couple friends in that class, and some that I met in the class due to the fact that we are in the class for a very long time every single day. With the 30 minutes of advisory we have, I try to do my homework but with the amount of people that are in the class it gets very loud and overwhelming so half of the time I am not able to concentrate and I give up on my homework. The students that sit around me usually play cards and some days me and my friends will join them and it’s a pretty fun time. My 5th period is not my favorite but it could definitely be worse. I just wish it was a more chill class so I could get my homework done.

My fifth period isn’t the worst.  Honestly, I don’t know anyone. There are only three other sophomores in the class, and it is a bit wild.  Although these things are hard, I do love learning about healthcare and I love my teacher. 

This class is absolutely full of freshmen, and it isn’t bad. My fifth period is often a good place for studying and doing homework, but I do wish we had Flex. I miss being able to see my friends during lunch and miss my hour long lunch to eat, study and even just catch up with friends. 

I do enjoy my fifth period, but not half as much as I enjoyed Flex.  And although I do miss Flex, I am glad I got lucky enough to have a good fifth period.  I know it would be rough to have a core class fifth period – all those hard new things we are learning and having to be in there for a whole hour and a half. I hope sometime in the future we will get Flex back, or earn it back if that is what we have to do.

In regards to my fifth period class, I greatly enjoy it. Of course, I would rather have flex back and the ability to join clubs again (which seems like it has gone extinct by now); but overall, I like my 5th period class. There may be some skewed data based on underlying factors such as, “Are there people you already know in the class?” “What is the teacher like?” “Is it an easy class?” that can affect someone’s view of the extended class period. I was lucky enough to not only have an easy and laidback class for my fifth hour, but I also know a lot of people in the class. The longer time spent means that we finish our work pretty early and the rest of the time we can talk or play games with each other. Flex Hour returning is the goal, but for now I do not mind my extended fifth period.

Advisory. A time where you are either forced to “learn” a life lesson, do work for other classes, play games, talk or just sit in silence waiting for the 30 minutes to be up. Normally, we have small lessons about whatever our teacher is told to do by the district, but recently, since Flex lunch is simply non-existent, we’ve needed to resort to a full 30 minutes of study hall.

Now. having a study hall everyday so far isn’t exactly a bad thing, however, nobody really has anything to do. So this is what usually happens in my 5th period: Me and my friends tend to discuss relatable topics or random trends and fads of the internet. The table behind us occasionally plays a card game, specifically BS. The rest of the students ignore those of us socializing and play games on the Chromebooks.

In 5th period, we start off our day by doing the notes and sometime we even have free days because of how much time we spend in there. We get to work on our missing work or review for the test if we have one coming up soon.

Waiting for lunch to come around feels like forever, like we sit there for hours in that class. Once C lunch is near, we start to pack up to leave the room just to come back and sit some more.

We come back for our advisory if there is one, but if there isn’t we sit and talk or do homework. When the bell to go is near to go to sixth we all pack up, eager to leave the class.

Without flex, I’m stuck in 5th period for an extra 30 minutes. Normally, this would be a good thing: a quiet environment, time to work on homework and plenty of opportunities to build strong connections with others. But my class is quite the opposite. It’s full of loud and crazy kids who think they’re tough. They laugh so loud, I can hear them through my nice (wired) headphones. Usually, I use my valuable time to complete homework and then relax peacefully. However, I have no homework before 5th period, so I end up wasting my time playing games and watching YouTube shorts.

Having English fifth period is, in my opinion, one of the best classes you could have for 90 minutes straight. I’m surrounded by pretty close friends that I can rely on and talk to all class. The teacher is very nice and willing to help, and the class is pretty chill. When I walk into my class, after having eaten lunch, my mood shifts from bored to calm. It also definitely improves my mood because I really do enjoy English as a class, and I can get the work done pretty easily. When I get my work done, I spend the rest of the time listening to music, playing games or just talking to my friends.  Even if I’m just able to listen to music and solve some math problems, it really does reduce my stress. This period really helps me focus on work, or relax after a stressful day.