New Year, New Schedule, New You

Adriana Clukey

In previous years, our schedule has consisted of 7 periods. These periods would rotate daily, and then would reset the next week. Each class was 47 minutes long, and lunch period was slightly longer.

During the 2020-2021 school year, we cohorted students. Each class was approximately 90 minutes long, and we ran various versions of the schedule during the year. Initially, half of the students were in the building two days a week and half were remote. Everyone was home on Wednesday and then Thursday and Friday, the cohorts switched and those home Monday and Tuesday came in and the other group was remote. There were four periods each day, allowing for the 7 periods and a homeroom block over the course of two days. Some of the advantages of this schedule were that the longer periods allowed for more learning, and that we had another day to get homework done, as we had each class every other day. However, many people complained that because of the longer periods, boredom crept in quickly and it was difficult to sit in the same room for 90 minutes when we were used to sitting there for about half that time. After being home from November to January, we returned to this hybrid schedule and began working towards bringing more and more students back in the building. In 2021-2022, we reverted back to our traditional schedule knowing we needed to create an 8 period day for the new school year.

A committee of teachers and administrators worked together to research various potential schedules that other schools used. They reviewed pros and cons of each schedule and eventually determined a 4 day rotation, 8 drop 2 schedule would work best for our school.

This year, we began running the new schedule. There are eight periods, but we only attend six periods a day. It’s a little confusing to explain, but basically you have periods 1-6 on A day. The next day, B day, your first two periods are removed from your schedule, and the two periods you didn’t have the previous day are added to the end of your schedule meaning periods 3-8 run. So your third period class the previous day is now your first period. This pattern continues, rotating in a four day cycle. If there’s a snow day, when you return you have the schedule you would have had the day before. On half days, the periods are extremely short; they last a little under half an hour each. Homeroom is no longer every day and is now once a week, on Wednesdays.

As you can imagine, there have been mixed reactions to this new schedule, among both students and staff. Mr. Distasio, who teaches finance classes and computer science, summarized the general consensus well. He said, “I like it. It gives me more time in class to get things done. It’s not perfect. It’s an adjustment and we’re all getting used to it.” Most staff and students agree with the points that it allows us to get more work done and that it’s a major adjustment. When I asked students about their opinions on the new schedule they all said different variations of the same complaint. That complaint is that the hour of class feels a lot longer, making it easier to lose interest. While from an outside perspective, an hour is only a ten minutes difference from fifty minutes, those ten minutes can make a huge difference. However, most students all said a similar thing that they liked about the schedule. This is because you don’t have every class everyday, it sometimes provides a much needed break from a class, and can give more time to get homework done. For example, if you were assigned a worksheet for math class but you had that class second period on a Wednesday, that homework would be due last period on Friday. Or if you’re dreading going to one of your classes, you don’t have that class every single day of the week.

To put it in short, the new schedule has had a mixed response. But, it’s here to stay for at least the rest of the year, and by the time we all adjust to it we might even prefer it over the schedules we have used in the past. Many people struggle with change, but the schedule will eventually become the new normal.