Second semester is underway and students are discussing next year’s schedule. Conversation about the schedule change has arisen and it hasn’t been positive. Students and have been discussing the shortened lunch period, having to see every teacher in one day, and the amount of work the students and teachers are going to have to do. Changing the schedule can and will lead to a world of stress for students.

Next year’s lunch period will be shortened to 30 minutes. A 30 minute lunch for students isn’t all bad. It may seem like it’s unfair, but a little less time to eat and socialize really isn’t that awful. Teachers already have enough on their plates whether it’s grading papers or meeting with students about extra help. A long planning period is probably pretty helpful for students and teachers. Without a longer planning period, it is possible that teachers will struggle to keep students engaged in class. As a result, not only will students be affected negatively by the schedule change’s periods, but it’s possible that teachers might experience a stressful transition into the new schedule as well. The change of schedule will be completely counterintuitive due to the risk of  unengaging classes

Students, including me, already have a heavy workload to deal with after school. By making students see every teacher on Monday Tuesday and Friday, we’ll receive an unfair amount of homework. If every teacher assigns homework, students who play sports will have to cram hours and hours of studying late into the night. Teachers might also be faced with the challenge of having to see everyone of their students in a single day. This could cause a huge amount of stress throughout the school and it will create a nightmare for teachers. If I were a teacher, I would detest having to see more than 100 students in one day. The schedule for next year is looking to have a negative effect on AHS. However, the school says they have a good reason.

One of Aspen High School’s main reasons for the change in schedule is to meet IB minutes. So that means all the students who have already made a plan for IB courses  and were considering IB classes next year are being forced to change their entire plan just because of the schedule. Students who have already planned out next year’s classes, especially IB classes, have been totally disregarded. Some students were so outraged about the schedule change, they started a petition to have it postponed or terminated in general. Postponing the schedule change would mostly be for students that were planning on taking IB courses, but didn’t consider the new schedule. The major reason for the schedule change has just backfired on AHS.

The schedule change looks like it has a lot more negative effects than it does posititve. Board members at AHS should ask themselves, “If students made a petition to terminate the schedule, should we change it?”

Next year’s schedule will cause too much stress for students and teachers, be totally counterintuitive due to unengaged students in class, and it will totally backfire in the face of AHS because of how ridiculous it is to change the schedule to meet IB course requirement minutes, but at the same time ruin the plans of students who didn’t consider the schedule change next year when picking their courses.