The morning announcements are a waste of class time in the mornings. While beginning the day with a warm greeting from administration may be a great way to start the day, the following announcements are not important enough to take class time. Announcements such as Powderpuff updates, what games or clubs will have events that day, or reminders to buy prom tickets are already both emailed to staff and students and available on social media. The HC Instagram account has 1,908 followers who are all receiving these updates in real time without the morning announcements. Other platforms also make information easily accessible.
There is also a minute of silence every morning. This is a law in the State of Kentucky, intended to give students a minute to pray or meditate before the day. The HC announcements state “Please join us for a minute of seated silence for prayer or meditation.” It is followed by a minute of silence periodically interrupted by a rustle from behind the microphone. Additionally, very few classes stay silent during the minute of silence. Students often jump at the opportunity to talk about weekends or previous evenings with friends before they have to be quiet and pay attention to the day’s lesson. This also defeats the purpose of the moment of silence because it is also not being utilized as it’s intended.
Most mornings, there is a joke of the day. The joke is generally unfunny and poorly delivered. While well-intended, students would benefit more from instruction than pondering why the chicken crossed the road.
Overall, these announcements take up to five minutes of class time at the start of the day. This may seem like an insignificant amount of time, but compounded with other morning tasks, such as homework collection and attendance, it takes away a significant amount of class time. This can leave the first block class behind the others because they have less time. Teachers already lost overall time to block scheduling, they shouldn’t have to lose time to announcements available elsewhere too.
