I walked into my success period like any other, expecting to take a break as always. Fall Break had just concluded and school was back and running for the second quarter. Once I sat down and the bell rang, my teacher announced a mandatory addition to the success period. That addition was Exact Path. Immediately, the students surrounding me muttered their disdain for it despite it just being announced. Even six weeks in, students still don’t like it. I wanted to understand why students held such strong animosity towards Exact Path and also learn why it was implemented at all.

Firstly, I decided to ask Bryson Schott, a student from my success period why he dislikes Exact Path.  “I don’t like it, it takes time out of other classes people could’ve worked on during that success period. I want things to be reverted because I used to use that time to do assignments that I had to do later or earlier that day.” That’s something I can agree with because I also used the success period to do my missing assignments if I had any at the time. It threw me and many other students off having to find new times to get those assignments done, especially if a student had a busy schedule. This is also fundamentally a result of change. When somebody grows used to doing something a certain way, which in this case was having a regular success period throughout all of last year, suddenly having something changed about it would make students upset  Success period was also one of the best times in school to just relax on your phone and talk with friends, which resonates with many people. 

Next, I decided to talk with someone more educated about Exact Path so I could learn more about it from an expert’s point of view. I was lucky enough to get in contact with the instructional coaches  Tim Gray and Rissi Scott to hear from them. Firstly, I decided to ask them why Exact Path was implemented. “We felt that it’s good to implement because there are gaps in student learning that have occurred already up to this point.” So now that there’s a reason for Exact Path, the question on many student’s minds is why is it important. “The three coaches in here met with Edmentum and we decided that we were going to use NWEA data, take the information, and put it into Exact Path for all students. I think a big part of choosing to go with this program is that it is individually tailored towards each student and it is what they make of it. I think one thing I would want to say to students is that we understand that you don’t want to work harder but if they can buy into the idea that it’s helping them more than it’s hurting them, that would be awesome,” is what they responded with.