Just as students finally settle into the schedule and learn the rhythm of their classes, BAM! Administration sends out a new schedule for the upcoming year. This has been the case every year since the graduating class of 2025 have been in highschool. Students are getting whiplash every year. They wonder when the cycle will come to a halt. Will this changed, fresh schedule finally be the perfect match?
School administrators have yet again instituted major changes effective fall 2024, prompting mixed reviews. A lot of teachers endorse the change; however, the responses regarding students vary.
Last year, there were six classes three days a week with two block days. This year the school adopted a block schedule where there are no more than four classes a day. These changes also include 80 minute periods, longer breaks, additional advisory, assembly time and office hours.
Academic Dean, Caitlin Clark, explained that the changes arose after students found inconvenience in the schedule.
“When you’ve got seven or six classes all meeting on one day, it can overwhelm the students,” Clark said.
Different lengths of class time sometimes overburdened students causing confusion about when class started and ended. Also, since students had almost all their classes every day, they often only had one night to complete seven and six subjects worth of homework. Additionally, some students did not have their schedule memorized even at the end of the year due to the complexity of it.
“When we sent out surveys… we realized that it hit a point where we needed to make a change. We want to make sure that our schedule is serving students,” Clark said.
A group of teachers and administrators all gathered frequently last year to address some of the challenges being voiced from staff and students alike. They went through a few different iterations of ways to meet their goals of consistency and stress reduction.
“This opens the door for more passing time, longer lunches and the ability of clubs to meet during lunch,” Clark said. “You can meet with the teacher during office hours to be able to connect with your teachers.”
The response from students was varied. Student body president Kaia Berg Smith praised the change.
“What I’ve heard from students is that they’ve really enjoyed the new schedule… and having all this extra time to do homework,” Berg-Smith added.
Sophmore Stephania Salazar felt differently.
“It’s really draining to have three 80-minute classes in one day,” Salazar said.
It is extremely hard for students who have had a schedule with short class periods all of their highs school careers to suddenly have longer periods. Since there are only a few classes, there is a lot of extra time in the day.
An upper school English teacher, Gina Jaeger, enjoyed the schedule, saying how she observes better student engagement and focus in class. However, she complained about the extended advisory time.
“It feels like filler… I don’t think we need advisory meetings three times a week. It feels like too much time,” Jaeger said.
Furthermore, some students feel like the lunch is too long now and don’t know what to do with their time. For instance, the lunch plus is an hour long.
“There are still some tweaks to be made to the schedule…I’ve heard a couple students say that lunch almost feels too long now,” Clark said.
Despite a few factors, the general response to the new schedule is positive. Maybe it is the perfect match. Will there ever be a perfect schedule? If not, the cycle of improvements will keep on cycling.
