Open periods will not be available to Seniors who did not take or pass their TSI test.

The purpose of the denial for seniors who failed their TSI is to spare you the time and money for when you go to college. Students who failed their TSI or did not take it will be placed in a college prep class to account for the missing TSI test. Their are optional sign ups that are 5$ per section on April 5th and May 3rd, but for those of tight on money (especially around Summer time) there are paid opportunities available to students April 8th and April 24th.

So, why the missing opens? What’s the point of holding out the “free time” we are kind of expecting to have by our last year in high school? Who really cares about the TSI and why should it matter?

What is the purpose of an open? All freshman and graduating eighth graders alike have more than once fantasized about the day they can drive and leave school early. At least, that’s the idea we were all given whenever a cool senior, attempting to show us the ropes, told us whenever we were young and naive. Now, of course, things are changing as education is more important than leisure. Leisure, while beneficial at times, can lead to laziness and the denial of open periods to students who did not take their TSI is justified.

“There’s no real academic benefit,” Librarian Louis Hoops says, somebody who has welcomed seniors with open periods and nowhere to go. “People who use their time wisely are usually people who have gotten out ahead.”

Students, no matter how ahead they are in classes, all suffer the same overbearing weight of college payments. College is expensive, which is why our school offers AP and IB courses to help lighten your remedial load for when you graduate and hopefully go into college.

TSI, the Texas Success Initiative, is a legally mandated test that measure your readiness for college-level courses. If you are not ready, the remedial classes will cost you money, even though you are automatically put in them for not meeting requirement. Open periods, are essentially a time to relax and catch up. The inverse, the college-prep class, saves you the extra sweat of being in college remedial courses. Opens are now a reward.

For anybody begging for an open, make sure you study hard to pass that TSI.