To the Editors:

Re “We have to save X-block” (May 26, 2025):

As leaders of the Climate and Food Justice Club, we are writing to urge the schedule committee to keep a weekly time for clubs to meet. Having a weekly X-block has been hugely important in helping our club–and many others–be supportive, fun and extremely productive for student and faculty participants.

Over the past ten or so years, our club has worked on dozens and dozens of projects. Regarding food, for example, we have spurred the creation of a composting program, led food drives and anti-plastic campaigns, and worked with the town’s Solid Waste Advisory Committee to perform waste audits to evaluate the efficacy of waste sorting at the high school. Regarding transportation, we have served on the transportation subgroup of the School Committee Climate and Sustainability Task Force, researched electric bus grant programs, advocated for safer bicycle infrastructure, and led group bike rides to school. We have also been the driving force behind several general town-wide sustainability initiatives: we have written and supported warrant articles that have passed Town Meeting, organized a forum for School Committee candidates this past April, and have written and delivered lessons on climate change both in Advisories at the high school and many K-8 schools. We have formed close and meaningful relationships with leading school and town officials, and created such relationships with hundreds of students and teachers as well. None of this would have been possible without a regular (yes, weekly) time to meet, plan, work and socialize.

X-block, though not currently classified as “structured learning time,” is a cornerstone of the efforts students and teachers have made to learn together, form meaningful connections, create the culture we want and exercise essential freedom and responsibility as engaged members of our community. In his article calling for the preservation of X-block, Chair of Legislature and Student Council Eric Bardon listed our club as a prime example of student engagement at the high school. He is right to call attention to the dire situation clubs like ours face with the threat of fewer X-blocks. We stand with Student Council and with club leaders schoolwide in calling for a fair solution to the rescheduling dilemma, one that allows time for learning inside and outside the classroom.

Sincerely,

Eric Colburn, club advisor
Toby Sillman, student leader