Dear Santa,

The students at Olathe East have a few requests for Christmas this year. These changes would make school more enjoyable for both students and teachers. 

Our outrageous start times are first up. Please change the schedule so that we don’t have to come to school so early. Some students have to wake up at 5:00 AM just to make their early bus. High schoolers need the opportunity to sleep in a little bit. We wouldn’t be against starting school around 9:00 on a regular day and 9:15 on Thursday block day. Pretend the change in schedule was for the teachers and then nobody will care. They won’t complain about an extra hour of sleep.

For all our classes, we would appreciate a no homework policy. Nobody does the homework anyway and the majority is just busy work. Oh, and since we’re no longer getting homework, there would be nothing to have tests over, right? This sounds perfectly logical to me. On the subject of tests, please get rid of the schoolwide testing days. They are unnecessary and at the very least extremely annoying for teachers and students. The people that give these tests deserve nothing but coal in their stockings. Besides, why do we need an entire day devoted to standardized tests? These stress-inducers don’t need a birthday party.

Hawk Hour is certainly enjoyed by the students, but we have a few suggestions that would make Hawk Hour fantastic. Right now, students have to walk around the world and back in order to get to one of the three open bathrooms. Once they arrive at their destination, they are awkwardly met by a security guard posted outside the door. It’s all very uncomfortable. We just want to do our business without someone stalking the bathroom. That shouldn’t be too much to ask for. We have a sneaky suspicion that you wouldn’t be hurting the security guard’s feelings either.

OE students would also love to have open lunch from now on. School food becomes boring after a while, and most things on the menu are pretty bad. Students would love to be able to go down the street to Chick-fil-a and get some real food. Now, we understand that this may pose a lot of problems so we have come up with a much easier alternative. What about turning the commons into one giant food court filled with restaurants? That wouldn’t be too hard for you, would it? Just imagine the look on the administrator’s faces when they come back from winter break and see the freshly-revamped commons for the first time. They would love you! Your elves would even have two weeks to do everything because the school will be empty over winter break. By the way, since there will be more people buying school lunch, we think that Hawk Hour should be longer to account for the extra people in the lines. Funny how everything worked out.

Our next grievance is simple. We don’t want to go to school so much. An extra day off a little more regularly would be highly appreciated. Students also need a longer summer break to truly have time to relax. 

Now for the fun stuff. Student morale would improve drastically if we really got into the holiday spirit. We could start by decorating the outside of the school. The boring brick facade would be pretty easy to turn into a colorful canvas of lights and decor. We would have to get a massive Christmas tree in the commons too. Seriously, we could even have a school party like we did in elementary school. 

We beg you to help us out a little this Christmas. You are the only person that can fix school once and for all.

Sincerely,

The Students of Olathe East