With the addition of weekly Wednesday early releases, Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) has been added between second and third hour.

Students are allowed to use their phones to read books and articles. However, it is hard to determine whether the use of cell phones during SSR is helping or hindering reading development as there are distractions such as texting or social networking.

This is not by fault of teachers, as they are not able to dictate what every student is looking at on their own devices, as faculty and administration are also required to be reading.

Instead of having a required silent reading period that forces everybody to read whether they want to or not, a silent study period of the same time length would bring more benefits.

This study time would help students who are unable to do their work in class, but are too busy outside of school to promptly complete it.

During this period, students would be required to silently do something productive of their own choice. This includes choice reading, homework, drawing, or other school-related work.

Allowing students and even teachers to utilize the 25 minute period to their own benefit rather than forced reading would raise productivity and generally cause a lighter general mood throughout the school.

SSR was put into motion to help improve the reading capabilities of our school as a whole. This works for students who enjoy reading, but contradicts those who try and find a way out of it.

The policy of sustained silent reading should be taken another look at and carefully decided whether it should be enforced in the manner it is now.