After several years of holding the Junior High’s venerable “Across the Street Day” at Tuesday’s lunchtime, Junior High staff has decided to change the weekly event to Mondays. The privilege rewards students who have completed all their assignments in a given week. Although the date shift may not seem like much of a change, Junior High eighth-graders, who spent last year going across on Tuesdays as seventh-graders, had strong reactions.
Nadim Stambuli had a generally positive outlook. “It’s pretty nice because Mondays are usually bad, and I don’t want to wake up and do stuff on Mondays, but then I’m like ‘oh look, I’m getting money for pizza’ and then I go eat pizza.” Emma Elliott-Watkins agreed. “I like the new Monday across the street day because I’m always like, ‘ugh, Monday!’ but when you go across on Monday, I’m like, ‘you know what, it’s okay.’”
Not everyone was happy about the shift. Some objected to the idea of change itself, even considering its benefits. “You don’t have PE, so you don’t have to run around with a full stomach, but I also built my whole life around it being on Tuesday!” said eighth-grader Adam Elkobaitry. “I like having a treat on Tuesday, after I get through Monday, and if it’s on Monday, it’s like your special day is on Monday and then the rest of the week is terrible,” said Scarlett Ferry, eighth-grader.
According to Kristen Moore, Junior High lead teacher, the change was made to add consistency to afternoon classes Tuesday through Thursday. “Monday classes don’t start till one, anyway, so we thought, ‘let’s move it to Monday so those Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday classes can all be the same length.’” She explained that the shift “makes life a lot easier for those teachers” and is “less confusing for students,” since classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday therefore start and end at the same time.
She recalled that there was also a time when the Junior High went across the street, not on a Monday or Tuesday, but on Wednesday. In fact, this is not even the first time the Junior High has gone across on Mondays. “Once upon a time, when we first started the across the street–which I didn’t start, the teacher before me did–it was on Monday’s, so it’s not new,” Moore said.
Moore noted that changes to the day have always caused a stir. Former student Zack Wilson was so disgruntled by a previous change of the day when he was in the Junior High that he wrote Moore an essay asking “‘why did you change it to Tuesday, it’s supposed to be Wednesday, it’s always been Wednesdays!’” Moore said. Moore shrugged off the recent hubbub with a typically wry response: “People don’t really like change.”
