For many BSM Students, an asynchronous day is often considered a day off from school. Asynchronous Learning Days, otherwise known as async days, come around the BSM school calendar every once in a while, mostly on Fridays. Async days are when students are not required to come to school, but teachers still assign homework. Some students take async days as just a day off from school and there are others who buckle down and get their work done quickly.
A normal school day at BSM runs from 8:00 am to 2:30 pm. When async days happen, the school day can start and end whenever you want. Teachers assign work so things can keep moving, but are also supposed to make sure students are not overwhelmed with homework. Students end up spending less time on their schoolwork than they would during a normal school day, so they have more time to do other things. “Not a lot, I usually plan [on doing] other things or have something [else] going on during the day. So I don’t spend a lot of time on homework. I end up playing basketball or playing video games with my friends,” sophomore Tanner Rose said.
Not a lot, I usually plan [on doing] other things or have something [else] going on during the day. So I don’t spend a lot of time on homework. I end up playing basketball or playing video games with my friends.”
— Tanner Rose
It is easy for students at BSM to fall into a routine and get in the flow of things. When an async day comes around, students can get thrown off their game and see themselves falling behind. If students choose to save their assignments for a different day, they can become easily forgotten and could end up with missing assignments. This can harm students’ grades and cause them to fall even further behind. “Probably because I don’t do any of my work on Async days. I just end up saving my work until the night before it is due,” senior Jack Scallon said.
There are many positives and negatives to having async days. Every student’s opinion depends on how they choose to spend their time. Students who like to get up early and grind to get all their work done in a shorter amount of time will probably tend to like async days more. Students who save their work to be done the night before it is due probably don’t like them and would not like to see async days in the school calendar. “I would not [like to see async days removed] because I think that it’s always nice to kind of get a change of scenery and get out of the building… You can get more homework done on your day off than you would without it,” junior AJ Ulrich said.