It’s 10:00 p.m. You started your homework earlier that day so that you could finish it quickly and catch up on the sleep that you’ve been deprived of for days. You’re just about to go to sleep, when your phone rings and the screen flashes. Thinking it’s a text message, you open your phone to find it. A new post on Google Classroom, at this hour, showing an assignment due tomorrow. For a second, you consider pretending that you never saw the post so that you have an excuse for not doing it, but your anxiety gets the better of you. Just another day of no sleep.

There is no doubt that Google Classroom, a Google tool that “makes teaching more productive and meaningful by streamlining assignments, boosting collaboration, and fostering communication,” has made school life easier for both students and teachers. It is used nearly every day by every teacher in Tenafly High School to provide information and assignments at any time for classes, clubs, and events. Yet, this very aspect of Google Classroom that makes it so convenient can also serve as a problem when teachers truly post “at any time,” including late nights.

Naomi Chan (’21) said, “My teachers post literally every day, usually right after school or after class. The latest my teacher posted was 10 p.m., which was annoying. First of all, some people sleep early, and it can mess up people’s schedules. It would also suck for people who don’t get notifications and didn’t see it.”

Teachers also use Classroom when they are not in class, on days that the students rotate out, or on weekends, when students are not expecting anything. Even if  the assignment is not due the following day, there is an inevitable disadvantage for those who did not see it. Thus, it would be unfair for teachers to require students to be aware of such assignments if they were not mentioned before.

Eunice Park (’21) said, “ I once got an assignment posted on a snow day, and that ruined snow days for the rest of the year. Getting assignments at those times ruins your whole mood because you think that you’re done but you’re not.”

Ryan Chang (’21) said, “If teachers post late, I have Classroom on my phone so I check the notification, but there’s a point where I don’t do it.”

When asked about how late he thinks teachers should post on Google Classroom, Edward Nah (’21) said, “I think teachers should post as soon as possible, or one or two hours after school, but after that it gets hard to finish the assignment. If teachers can post at any time it’s difficult to do the assignment that late.”

Currently, there is no policy in the Tiger Q or other documents concerning what times are appropriate to upload assignments or projects. However, if there are more complaints about Google Classroom expressed by students it may soon be necessary to create a time slot for teachers.