Education is something that isn’t on the front mind of many people these days. This thought alone should scare many people, but what is even more frightening is the lack of attention to funding education and the problems face.

It is no secret that Alliance Public schools is recovering from some money issues. It is a long road that many people and organizations go down, and the process can take a long amount of time. The problem that comes hand in hand with money problems is having enough staff, or resources to optimize the business. Cutbacks are happening all around the nation, but what is happening in schools is something that should be brought to people’s attention. A side affect of less staff and less classes means more time wasted for students.

To be fair, it is entirely up to each individual student how tough his or her schedule is. There are a large variety of classes available for students, but many students occupy their time with two, or three free periods a day, such as BAC, a free period, cadet, or work coop. There are many ways that this problem, that results in students sitting around all day can be solved, but the one that seems to stick out the most is to offer more electives for students. There are a wide variety of electives already offered at AHS, but it seems that they all fall during the same period. The scheduling for next year is currently being revised, but an easier fix would be to mix up the offered electives more. This may be difficult to do, but it isn’t unreachable. As a student who has had the struggles of making a schedule for their classes, There are times where there were only two or three classes to choose from for a certain period. If these classes are not what students are interested in, then students may end up in a study hall, where if they already have a free period, results in time sitting around at school, where they could instead be in some sort of elective class that would not only keep them more involved in school, but also make packed study halls less full. There are steps being taken by the school to resolve this problem. Adding credit hour requirements is the largest one. “ Credit requirements were moved from 240 to 260 for this year’s freshman,” said Assistant Principal Eric Oestman, “This adds an extra elective that is required.”

There are also many things in the works for next year’s schedules, something that Mr. Oestman is looking forward to. “There are some good ideas for next year, but nothing is really set in stone.” Though the plans are not yet ready to release to the public, he added that all steps that are being taken are to “improve the entire learning experience at AHS.”

The case might be that there just isn’t enough staff to move the electives around to make them more accessible. It may be a problem that can’t be fixed, but if there is any way to make it so students don’t spend as much time sitting around in study halls, then any idea should be open to discussion.