Other schools in our conference have the advantage of a shorter school day with an earlier release time, while DGN requires students to be here until 3:20 p.m. This leaves students with minimal opportunity to do anything other than school work and athletics.

Glenbard West students have a seven hour school day, ending at 2:35 p.m. Another conference rival, Lyons Township, is dismissed at 3:05 p.m., and Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South both finish classes by 3:00 p.m. If we were to end around the same time other schools in our area do, this would give students 15-20 minutes extra that could contribute to getting a little extra sleep, or doing something fun and relaxing.

The administration should consider changing the length of our school day, not only for the sake of a little free time and extra sleep, but also for scheduling games, practices and club meetings.

Most schools in our conference end their school day before us, making it difficult to schedule extracurricular activities at a set time that is convenient for both schools.

Since schools like Glenbard West end at 2:35, and LT is done by 3:05, by the time we finish classes at 3:20, get on the bus at 3:45 and spend 20 minutes on the bus (and that’s without traffic if we’re lucky) trying to get to an away event, it’s already 4:15. By the time the game actually starts at 5, and we spend 2 hours at the game and another 20 minutes home, it’s almost 8 a.m. and we haven’t eaten dinner or started our homework.

When students attend activities with these schools, the long days put us at a disadvantage. There have been many instances over the past few years when teams have had to leave school early just to have a chance of arriving on time. If the school day were shortened by even twenty minutes, allowing games to start at 4:30 instead of 5, that’s half an hour saved at the end of the day while only giving up about 2 minutes to each individual class period, and it’s more convenient for all schools in the area.

Games would get out earlier, practices would get out earlier, and students would be able to finish homework earlier and get more sleep.