Students will now only be able to schedule with teachers who teach subjects that they are enrolled in, according to new FIT guidelines that McCallum adopted in the last week of October. These guidelines also include restrictions on clubs, which will now only meet on Fridays. 

According to Principal Andy Baxa, these adjustments to FIT policy have been created to restore the “original intention of FIT.”

“Over the years we have gotten away from the original intention of FIT, which was focused on providing students with an opportunity to get extra help,” Baxa wrote in an email to MacJournalism. “Our original plan for FIT was to have clubs and fun activities at the end of the week; however, it seems like FIT has morphed into clubs three days a week, which does not leave much time for academic support.”

Another factor that contributed to the decision was concerned with attendance issues. 

“Some teachers were spending 5-10 minutes on taking roll, which only left a limited amount of time to help students,” Baxa said. “By restricting FIT to teachers on your schedule, teachers will get more time to help students.”

Baxa made sure to note that one change to the new policy will be continuing to allow seniors access to college and career counselor Camille Nix during FIT hours. 

Teachers are now adjusting their FIT schedules to accommodate these rules, including SPECTRUM club sponsor and math teacher Kelly Wroblewski. 

“Part of it is challenging in the sense that I understand the need for the change and how it helps our administration be better with student safety during that time,” Wroblewski said. “But what I found frustrating about this was the lack of warning.”

Wroblewski had planned to host a club party at the Tuesday FIT following the announcement of the new guidelines. Though she maintained her schedule despite the policy, she remains optimistic that Fridays may work better going forward. 

“I think Fridays will ultimately turn out better for us because it turns out that we will have fewer FIT Tuesdays than we will FIT Fridays,” Wroblewski said. “FIT Friday usually happens. We are excited because we will ultimately have more meetings.”

Some club-goers have a different perspective, however. Senior club leader William Perkins believes this will restrict students in their educational prowess. 

“I feel like the FIT regulations are extremely restrictive on the people that are trying to express themselves,” Perkins said. “There’s a lot of fun activities around McCallum and sometimes people just want to go to classes that are centered more around their interests. By restricting what classes people are able to go to, not only are they losing the ability to learn more about things they may find interesting but also restricts them from having this time to be social, which I think is a big detriment.”

Perkins, founder of the Nap-Time club and member of the UIL Academics club, also mentioned how this impacts students hoping to participate in multiple clubs. 

“[The restrictions on clubs] is very upsetting to me because I am already in multiple clubs that happen during FIT,” Perkins said. “Now that I have to choose between them is really unfair because I have to pick what I would like to do over another. I normally always go around during FIT to experience other clubs. I’ve gone to Yoga, Just Dance and a ton of other clubs, and now I don’t really get to experience all of the fun things that McCallum offers because I now have to pick one club a week.”

Though Perkins acknowledges the good intentions of the new policy, he still believes that the bad outweighs the good. 

“While I recognize the importance of getting kids to be productive in their own merit, I think that solely focusing on that undermines the draining aspect that school brings on people,” Perkins said. “School is a long time and a lot of people spend a lot of time working on their homework. Having FIT, in my mind, has always been a time to relax, decompress, be social with people and build connections within the school. The fact that that time is sort of being taken away undermines, maybe not what FIT was intended to do, but what students have been using FIT for to better themselves.”