When the change from Raider Time to RISE Time was announced, many students were enraged (read an op-ed about that here). Some even went so far as to start an anti-RISE Time petition and schedule meetings with the principal. However, one trimester into the new system, protests have quieted. Many students have come to terms with RISE Time, and some even prefer it to Raider Time.
In RISE Time, each class period is six minutes longer than it used to be. This adds a total of 30 minutes of in-class time to each class per week (six minutes times five days). This extra 30 minutes is supposed to be added together and used all on one day, and the time is meant for students to check in with their teacher, retake tests, and work on missing assignments.
Although students have differing opinions on the implementation of RISE Time, most agree that the idea is good and has the potential to work. Junior Selah Sedlacek said, “RISE Time is good in theory, but the school has not executed it well.”
Senior Josie Dingee said that RISE Time usually “feels more like review than dedicated time to talk to a teacher or get things done,” a sentiment echoed by many students.
Sedlacek agreed, commenting that she likes “the work time, but it feels the same as work time in the past. It doesn’t feel like teachers are actually giving dedicated RISE Time.”
Sophomore Jake Brown offered a different perspective. He said his teachers have “done a pretty good job giving us RISE Time. It’s not the same in every class, but all of my teachers do it in some way.”
Dingee guessed that the reason for the difference between her experience and Brown’s is due to the age of the students. She has noticed that upperclassmen teachers tend to gloss over Raider Time, while underclassmen teachers are more committed to the system.
Sedlacek pointed out another discontinuity in the implementation of RISE Time: “It gets skipped a lot more in AP classes.”
She guessed that this is because AP Classes tend to move a lot faster than other classes, so teachers just use the extra time to fit in more content.
Dingee also felt this way and mentioned that “especially in my AP classes, it feels like the teachers just fill the extra six minutes every day with lessons and never give us the 30 minutes we should be getting.
