Top 10 Things Schools Most Need to Improve On

My district has a reputation for turning out hyper-successful Ivy League graduates, and the school is VERY particular about maintaining that reputation. According to state law, teachers are allowed to assign up to seven hours of homework a night if they feel like it. I have around half that much, yet it's also worth noting that homework, while it sounds like a good idea on paper, is actually not that useful for academic achievement.

Not to mention, it intrudes on extracurriculars, sleep, and is the #1 cause of stress in high schools. It's a bad idea, and whoever is in charge of schools needs to start realizing that because I am devoting at least three hours a night to absolutely nothing productive.

My 4th-grade teacher said she doesn't shout (lie), and my 5th-grade teacher told me off for cleaning my glasses and said I put dirt on them. I hardly ever do that! They should employ nicer teachers or train them to be nice. I am going back to my mean 9th-grade teacher today. :(

One month ago, my teacher wouldn't let me go to the bathroom or the nurse even though I felt like I was going to vomit. So I vomited ON the floor and ON my new shoes. That was not okay. Those were my favorite shoes. Nooo!

Just because you're adults and we're kids doesn't mean respect doesn't go both ways.

The lunch at my old schools tasted pretty decent. They also served snacks. The mozzarella sticks were the best! Yum.

Seriously, the lunches taste like moldy socks!

Schools with a lunch system are very lucky.
My country has no school lunch system! (Ireland)

I think it would be better if school didn't start so early in the morning. For me, as someone who attends an Islamic school (I'm Muslim), we have to arrive at school as early as 7 AM. I always wake up at 5 AM to perform the Islamic morning prayer, and then I have to prepare for school because I don't have much time to sleep again, considering my house is a bit far from school.

In fact, I personally think that it would be better if we started school at about 9 AM and made the school day shorter, such as from 9 AM to 2 or even 1 PM. Honestly, that would be great, in my opinion.

The dress code at my school is pretty reasonable. Your shorts have to be at or close to your fingertips (no booty shorts), and you can't wear shirts that don't have the width of your two fingers. Hats have always been banned for us, ever since I was a kid, crying because the fire alarm went off.

My school, luckily, doesn't have a dress code. But in middle school, it was ridiculous. People should be able to wear whatever they want, all the time.

Dress codes were strict in my schools, but the students treated them like they didn't exist.

In my school, we definitely need MORE clubs. There are only like 6 clubs (homework club, baton twirling, Best Buddies, intramurals, art club, and one more). But, it depends on what school you go to - some need more clubs, some need less. It all depends on the school.

There used to be a club at my school dedicated to watching movies and eating cereal...

Out of all the times the fire drill goes off, less than 1% of them are for a legitimate reason. We don't need to learn how to walk outside in a line five times a year. We're 15, not 4.

With the homework epidemic, this is by far the biggest issue that plagues high schools. Nearly every problem I face in school - everything from having enough energy to go to clubs, to focusing in class, to doing homework at home, to performing well on tests - would be entirely fixed if school started later in the morning.

Teens are often physically incapable of sleeping from 9 PM to 7 AM because their bodies are rewired to sleep around 1 AM. The fact that schools start so early requires us to go against our biological clock, setting us up for failure.

Another good idea. Most of the things we learn in school are useless in our future. Not only that, we'll just end up forgetting it once we finish the exams anyway. It's just one of the reasons why school is a waste of time nowadays.

There needs to be more enforcement of anti-bullying measures. The teachers on the playground don't notice because the bullies always find a time and spot where the teacher is not there to catch them.

In high school, my classes were blocks of 80 minutes each, and in college, each class is 90 minutes long.

Oh, that's too irritating - those boring math classes! Seriously, the first two periods are math, and it's like 90 minutes!

Teach us things that we will actually use!

A lot of students struggle with typing short 3-page essays. (I am one of them.) Writing 10-20+ pages is very stressful for those students!