During last week’s school meeting, Dean of Students Mr. James Stanley announced a tentative change to the school internet policy: fifth and sixth formers will now have all-night access to the school Wifi. Previously, the internet shut-off time was at 12 a.m.and 1 a.m. for fifth and sixth formers respectively.
Former Student Body President Itai Mupanduki ’19 and current Student Body President Vikram Sharma ’20 introduced the proposal for this policy change. According to Sharma, fifth and sixth formers have much more work than underclassmen and need to work past the internet cut-off time.
“Itai and I proposed this policy change because we saw that for many Choate students, the workload dramatically increases when they become upperclassmen,” Sharma said. “While some may be able to alleviate the problem of staying up at night doing homework by allocating their time better, there are some nights where this is just not possible.”
Sharma believed that busy schedules and heavy workloads prevent the majority of students from completing their homework before the Wifi shut off time.“Many students are involved in a variety of interscholastic sports, arts, [and] extracurriculars that often have them starting homework very late, especially if they also are in clubs. This is especially true when people have away games and do not get back to campus until late. In these cases, sometimes it is just not possible to get work done before the internet shut-off,” Sharma said.
The old internet policy presented an issue of inequity for students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, according to Student Body Vice President Will Robertson ’20.
“The most compelling reason for this change was the issue of equity. What happens with a lot of juniors and seniors is that so many kids need to stay up past twelve to finish their work, but they can’t because they don’t have the money to pay for an internet hotspot on their phone,” Robertson said. “However, other kids who have the financial means to afford a hotspot may be able to. So you have kids who are able to spend more time on their work and get more homework done simply because they have the financial means to pay for a hotspot.”
A specific aspect of the new policy that has not gone unnoticed is the fact that the extended hours only apply to upperclassmen. While some say that this is not fair, many third and fourth formers agree that longer Wifi hours would not benefit the underclassmen. Taylor Mitchell ’21 said, “I don’t think Wifi hours should be extended for underclassmen because third and fourth formers have enough time during the week to finish their work if they manage their time effectively.”
In the announcement for the new policy change, Mr. Stanley also addressed a potentially abusable flaw: students will have unlimited internet access for non-academic activities. According to Ms. Kyra Jenney, HPRSS teacher and a faculty adviser of the student council, some students will be unproductive and procrastinate, regardless of changes to the Wifi hours.
“Students are already gaming too much and staying up late and procrastinating, so I’m not certain that this proposal is going to make that worse,” Ms. Jenney said. “Although there might be more opportunities with the Wifi staying on for students to do that, I think the benefit for the kids who actually need that work time every now and then is going to overweigh the handful of kids that might not have stayed up late before.”
In practice, though, it seems that most students are using the extra Wifi hours as originally intended, opting to sleep instead of wasting time online. “Initially, it was a little distracting, but even by now I’m already used to it, so I’m able to get more done and just go to sleep. I don’t use it for other purposes, really,” Audrey Powell ’19 said. “I think it’s just helped me to be a little extra productive while also having fun during senior spring.”
