Mid-Year Schedule Check

Last year, the schedule consisted of an AB Block schedule.  Classes alternated every other day.  This year, students have all of their classes every day of the week, excluding Wednesday and Thursday, for 50 minutes. On Wednesdays students have periods one through three, and on Thursdays students have periods four through seven for 90 minutes each. On Wednesdays, school ends at 1:55 p.m. for students, and includes a 20 minute “Access” period where students can talk to teachers and catch up on work. On Thursdays, Access is not granted.  Periods four and five are in the morning, and periods six and seven are in the afternoon.

Principal Tharyn Mulberry said that there are many benefits to the schedule.

“The benefits of the schedule this year are that everybody has classes, last year we weren’t able to get everybody scheduled in the classes so there was a lot of free time during the schedule, so that’s the number one benefit.” Mulberry said. “Another really large benefit of the schedule is that we were able to hit some of the things that were required by the board.  We were able to have math meet more frequently, and at the same time, keep some block classes so it was kind of like a compromise schedule.”

Now, midway through the school year, there are mixed results in regard to this year’s changes.

Personally, I am not a fan of the new schedule, but I understand that there are different content areas. And, as a school, we must sometimes compromise to accommodate all of the different disciplines.” Adam O’Bryan, a teacher in the English department, said “With the new schedule, teachers have less planning time than last year so it has been difficult to provide timely feedback to my students. Also, with the decreased planning time, it has been much harder to collaborate with other teachers and difficult to create engaging, creative, and impactful lessons for my classes.”

Teachers gave up a little more than one and a half hours of planning time per week with the new schedule, dropping from roughly 650 weekly planning minutes in 2015-16 school year to 550 minutes per week this school year.

Alex Reginelli, a Spanish teacher in the World Language, department said, “There are things that I like, and things that I dislike. I do really enjoy the 50 minute classes, I think they work really well for language acquisition, which is really what we’re trying to accomplish in our language program.  

What he dislikes echoes O’Bryan’s concerns.

“I’ve been overwhelmed with work at home, with things like grading, college recommendations, planning, you know, supporting fellow teachers, collaborating, disseminating information as the department head, and on top of that having those meetings and the professional development that we have to do,” Reginelli said. “Our planning time has been greatly reduced, and it’s creating a lot more work that I have to do at home so the conflict is that I really like the shorter periods but I am bringing a lot of work home.”

Andre Wille, a teacher in the Science department, brings up the issue that when students miss a day now, they miss all of their classes as opposed to only two or three like last year.  

“As far as the new schedule, I think it is good that teachers and students see each other four days a week. Unfortunately, there is also less time to meet with individual students outside of class for make up work or extra help.” Wille said. “There also are more students needing to make up more classes since every class meets daily. This year when students are out for a Friday, they miss all their classes.”

Teachers aren’t the only ones reflecting on the schedule.  Students alike are thoughtfully reviewing what works and what doesn’t.  

I don’t like it. I think [that] there is not enough time to get anything done,” said Grace Yeary, a sophomore.

Taylor Justice, a junior said, “I like it because it gives a break between classes and it’s easier to concentrate for shorter periods of time. On the other hand, it is harder to get things done in classes that are designed to have more class time. I have a harder time in IB Biology because we have stopped doing most labs since there isn’t enough time and science is a lab based class.”

Damien Beecroft, a senior, offers his opinion that he likes the schedule because time spent in the classroom varies depending on the day of the week.  

Evaluating changes halfway through the year is just one step to gauging its outcome.
“Well I’m always open to ideas around the schedule.” Mulberry said.  “We will evaluate to see what pieces we can and can’t change.  Will it look exactly the same as this year?  Probably not, but I don’t think it would change profoundly either.”