This year, there are 269 students with a free seventh, and only 66 with a free first. You would think teenagers would love sleeping in, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.

I noticed the change just by walking through the halls in the morning and comparing them to seventh period. In the morning kids litter the halls to get to their first class on time but when you stroll through the halls during seventh period it feels very calm and relaxed. There’s no rush of kids moving through the corridors, but rather a group hanging out by the senior tree or playing spike ball.

A free seventh period certainly has its perks, but the overcrowded first period classes are not ideal. I am not a morning person, so facing an overfull room of teenagers is not exactly the first thing I want to do in the morning.

Not only is it over crowded in the morning but my afternoon classes lack students making it harder to collaborate or get help from someone other than the teacher. I certainly feel the difference.

The teachers are starting to pick up on it, noticing some of the challenges they face. Lori Martz teaches AP Calculus and there is a large difference in class sizes between first and seventh periods. While first period has over 30 students, seventh period has only 10.

“Students in seventh period definitely get a lot more individual help in comparison to first period.” Martz said. Getting as much help as you can for any class is important, but especially for challenging classes.

Students in classes only offered seventh period or have work after school are thrown into crowded first period classes. While other students have free sevenths for no particular reason.

Students often complain about the parking issue and usually just think that it’s the number of kids at school that fills it up. However, if you look at the lot during seventh period you can see that there are way fewer cars than in the morning. If more students were to take a free first, there would be more room in the lot in the morning causing less stress to be on time. I bet Lena and Rich are tired of kicking students out of staff and illegal parking spots in the morning.