Starting for the 2024-25 school year, PCM will be implementing a new study hall and lunch policy for their junior and senior students. This decision was made at a school board meeting held earlier in the year voting on whether this would be a good change for the upper students in the high school. High school principal Kristen Souza was interviewed about how this change will look in the high school. “We actually have two open-campus policies for next year. The first one is the lunch open campus. That is a trial for one semester and what we’re going to do is open it up to juniors and seniors to potentially leave for lunch. There are going to be a lot of restrictions around that. You have to be passing your classes, you have to be in good academic standing, you have to have a 95% attendance rate regardless of excuse, you can’t have excessive tardies, there’s lots of things that go into that, but we are going to give that open campus lunch a try. We are also doing open-campus for study halls and everybody that is enrolled in a DMACC class, just for juniors and seniors. The same rules apply. When somebody leaves, they have to leave campus. They can’t hang around in the parking lot, things like that. That one (study halls) is not a trial, we are going to stick with because we want people to understand time management. There is no reason to fill our study halls with lots of kids who are doing online classes, some of them may have jobs, things like that, that are more real world,” Souza states. “Everybody (including freshmen and sophomores) is going to get a digital ID badge, and we’re going to have scanners for people to scan in and out, so you don’t have to fill up the office. We will be able to put restrictions on people’s passes who don’t qualify for open lunch and freshmen and sophomores, so they don’t try to leave during that time.” Souza then goes on to state why they changed this for the upcoming school year despite students not being able to leave during lunch or study hall, despite senior students in an 8-period study hall. “We are trying to install time management, real-world experiences. We want more people to do work-based learning, where you sign up to work with Mr. (Colton) Warrick, and he’ll find you a placement. We want more people taking online classes and DMACC classes. We want a more real-life experience and be able to come and go as needed. It’s also a really good incentive to get people here and to get grades up.” More information about this new policy will be released as we get closer to the new school year. Overall, this is a great new addition for PCM High School to try out!