In a survey of 100 failed students, more than half of the students failed gym.

In Morton East High School, there is a thought everyone has, and that’s if there are going to be students that fail. In the 1st semester, there are 865 E’s total as of today (12/12/2023).

According to the registration office, the top 3 courses of failures are PE at 125 E’s, Integrated Math III at 92 E’s, and US History at 70 E’s.  This number might not seem like a lot to many of you, but there are 3,580 students in Morton East High School, which means 23.5% of students have failed a class. ¼ of students have failed one course.  Even though there are most likely more classes that students failed in, we decided to find out why students failed in these top 3.

We tracked down “failures” from PE, Math and History and asked them “Why?”

“I failed PE because I have it 1st period, and I’m not a morning person, so it doesn’t help when I have to do makeups and it’s even earlier than 1st period. How will I make it to makeup gym if I don’t even make it to regular gym?” said senior Diego Ramirez.

This happens to be true for a lot of students; being late is always a problem and causes problems for students who are not morning people.

“Yeah, I did fail History, but I don’t think it was my fault.  I’m usually late to first period in the morning because I have a car and sometimes can’t find parking, and I end up getting a detention every day for it. So, it just made me hate the class, and I (quit trying to) pass it,” said junior Ashley Melendez.

There are some students who find the content difficult, and they don’t seek help in the school’s math, social studies, science or English labs.

“I think the reason I failed Math was that I’m not a Math person. The subject never really stuck to me, and the fast-paced teaching that my teacher did didn’t really help either,” said one senior.

There are plenty of reasons why more than 800 Morton East students are failing a course this semester.  But, ask yourself before you start blaming someone else — was it something YOU did or didn’t do that made the failure happen?