During Bulldog time every Thursday students who are failing classes must attend a WIN session in the cafeteria to help them catch up in their classes and do their work. The students are required to sit at a table for the designated class they are failing and sit in silence for the entirety of the period doing their work. Attendance is mandatory unless a teacher requests the student for something else during Bulldog time. 

As someone who has had to attend several of these sessions, though, I believe they are ineffective at helping students. The students are forced to put away their phones and headphones in their bags and if one is seen they are immediately taken until the end of the day. Teachers are patrolling around to help students – any students – but also to ensure they are on task and doing work. 

The purpose of this is supposed to help students, but I believe it fails in that core aspect as a tense, almost prison-like environment is created and for many students such as myself it can be difficult to complete the work in such an atmosphere. 

It can also be a bit degrading to be called out in front of everyone that you are failing a class when being told to go to WIN. It can make students feel like less than their peers and the tense atmosphere only adds to this feeling of inferiority. 

I understand that the ultimate goal is to provide these students an opportunity to bring up their grades and work on assignments with teachers around to help them, but I believe that the execution is flawed. 

With teachers being occupied telling students not to talk or checking to make sure that they are on task there is minimal opportunity to request help. With the addition of not being able to listen to music for some students, it can be hard to concentrate. 

I believe that to make it a more productive environment the school should focus on creating a less stressful environment by perhaps allowing students to chat with friends as they work so they may provide assistance to their peers without having to wait for a teacher to be free. 

I also believe it should be entirely optional for students to attend. Allowing kids who want to do better in their classes and receive help to receive that. The students who do not want to do better in their classes are oftentimes not going to get much work done during the WIN session either and may end up distracting those who truly care about improving.