We all know what happens near the end of every month at Hellgate: it’s on the announcements, it’s in every teacher’s Monday-morning lecture, and it’s hanging in every classroom. The Missing Work Deadline (MWD) is a notable feature of life at Hellgate, no matter if you love it or hate it. There has been a lot of discourse about the MWD ever since it was put into place, and while it’s nothing more than a distant concern for most of the month, the week of, it’s the only thing on everyone’s minds. “We call it a blessing and a curse,” said English teacher Caroline Lurgio.
The MWD, like most major deadlines, brings a healthy dose of procrastination as well as concentration. “It keeps students engaged in the newest curriculum… it gives everybody a clean slate after each month,” Lurgio said. She also explained that it’s easier for school administrators to keep track of students who are missing assignments, simultaneously making it easier for them to track students on a bigger scale than just class-by-class. Though, Lurgio does admit that there are cons: “It’s a tough week.”
Some students, like senior Aiden LaTrielle-Marsh, find the MWD week to be a less than enjoyable experience. He admitted that the deadline “very negatively” affects his stress levels due to an increase in procrastination driven by the promise of a more flexible timeline for completing assignments. However, LaTrielle-Marsh noted that it’s nice that “sometimes you don’t have to worry as much about assignments until a certain date.”
Junior Indy Barr agrees. “I put [missing work] off until that week and then I just lock in for 24 hours and get it all done,” said Barr. Later, Barr confessed that her strategy does make the week more stressful, but also said, “It gets me to do more missing work than I usually would be doing.”
Other students, like senior Sylvie Semanoff, don’t really mind the MWD. “It doesn’t affect my workload; it doesn’t affect my stress levels,” said Semanoff, “I don’t leave stuff to [do at] the missing work deadline.”
The significance of the MWD differs from class to class. While some require multiple assignments a week with varying deadlines, others are formatted around quizzes and tests that rely less on the MWD to keep everything in check. This means that for some classes there’s an influx of missing assignments pouring in around the MWD and for others, it just feels like another week.
Most of the teachers we interviewed acknowledged concerns about the intensity of grading during the MWD week. “[Students] show up and [drop] every piece of homework that I assigned on the late work deadline, which then leads to a pile of grading,” said chemistry teacher Lisa Ratz.
Other teachers, like Algebra 1 and AP Calculus teacher Shane McCorkle, explained that the MWD has improved his stress levels by making it so that “the onus is put on the students,” instead of the pressure being put on teachers to remind students to turn in and do work.
Even with varying perspectives between subjects, everyone can agree on one thing: the MWD keeps Hellgate together one way or another. Without the MWD, missing assignments would pile up at the end of the semester; something needs to be in place to keep students completing work on time, with no more leeway than a month so everyone stays on track.
“When I’ve taught without any deadline, the end of the semester becomes less about teaching and learning and more about assignments from September,” said IB History and Philosophy teacher Natalie Hymes.
Overall, most teachers and students are at least somewhat appreciative of the MWD, if not singing its praises. Teachers’ consensus is that the MWD lowers teachers’ stress and makes grading easier since there isn’t a big pile-up at the end of the semester. Students can agree that even if the MWD causes a spike in stress every few weeks, having a school-wide benchmark and a clean slate at the end of every month is worth it.
“Kids are natural procrastinators, [all] people are,” said McCorkle. “Everyone needs help to push them… having an incentive to get something done is more likely to get you to do it.”
The MWD acts as that schoolwide push for students and teachers alike so that everyone can start each month fresh.
