By Jozlyn Bew – Editor in Chief
The cat’s out of the bag.
It’s no secret that the school schedule will be changing drastically in the coming year. The working plan involves a single weekday for clubs, three different class blocking times that flip halfway through the week, and completely different schedules for underclassmen and upperclassmen. It’s safe to say that this is a jarring change from the classic four-block schedule, paired with our hour of free lunchtime.
A change in our day-to-day schedule has been in process for a little while, but now it’s upon us. Even after class meetings and school wide surveys that rally for the opposite, the new schedule is still in play. It’s being pushed pretty heavily, with what seems like little room for discussion.
The schedule has not been fully released, but as of now, the change is not a popular one, especially not after spending so much time adjusting to the block schedule. Cutting the block schedule into a choppy, three schedule week is complicated at best, and exhausting at worst. Shorter blocks are more likely to produce work for outside of school, especially when you take into account the population of juniors and seniors who have graduation portfolios and senior projects to toil on. The complexity of the schedule will result in a harsh transition for new freshmen, and then another for new juniors. It seems like it will also limit the amount of higher level classes that younger students will be able to take, due to the time blocks.
This schedule will also take away a lot of free time for us. For every grade, upper and underclassmen alike, the new schedule will mean almost no free lunch periods, and zero unstructured time. During the first four days of the week, you will have a structured lunch period, with half an hour to eat, then you are to report strictly to your advisor. On Friday, you are to be assigned to two places to go during your lunch period, one for the first half and one for the second. You must be there every Friday, or it will be counted against you. This limits the amount of clubs you can conveniently access, in exchange for quadruple the amount of advisory time. Many club meetings will have to be moved to after school, on top of the many sports and extracurricular activities that already take place. This will lead to students being forced to sacrifice certain things because of the substantial loss of freedom. The Student Trustees spent much of last year advocating for more free time for students, only for it to be taken away. It’s something that students highly regard, but that opinion does not seem to be valued.
The excessive amount of structured time also seems to lead to no time for tutoring. This means that even though there will be twice as many classes to have work to account for, there will be less time to study and complete the needed work. More students will have to stay after school in order to be a part of their extracurriculars due to the lessened amount of free time, as well as the sports / activities that already take place after school. This will lead to students having even less time to complete their work, as well as catch up in their classes if needed.
The students have spoken many times. It’s obvious that as a whole, we are not in favor of the new schedule. However, our opinions have been brushed aside by the administration. If you want to see these changes reversed, then it is important that you act. Be smart about it, but act. We are the students. Our word is important. Let’s let them hear it.
