For junior Andrew Gao, getting up in the morning is perhaps the most frustrating part of the day. From rolling out from bed, to showering to eating breakfast and finally leaving the house — the process is both mentally difficult and draining.
As a freshman, Gao to woke up, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth and had to be at school by 7:50 a.m. four days a week. Too often found himself in a constant battle with not only his alarm clock, but himself. Gao saw his tardies skyrocket and his grades plummet.
When the district adopted a rolling block schedule with an 8:15 starting time for the 2016-17 school year, Gao said his life got easier.
Now that students have been on the schedule for more than a year, The Falcon spoke to upperclassmen about whether they would return to the old modified block schedule if they could. Out of 10 randomly selected juniors and seniors who were interviewed, all said they preferred the new schedule, citing reasons including a “more reasonable start time” and the “elimination of all seven classes on Monday.”
“Freshman year, I remember that even though the tutorial was longer, I wasn’t really able to take advantage of it since I didn’t necessarily have any questions on some specific day,” Gao said. “However, with the new schedule’s daily tutorials, I have a lot more flexibility meeting and talking with my teachers.”
Junior Roshan Verma said daily tutorials are an upgrade from the old schedule, which had three tutorials a week.
“Now, as a junior, I feel that if we still had the old schedule it would be a lot more stressful and not as manageable, as I always find myself struggling to find time to complete my work and be productive,” Verma said.
However, not all aspects of the schedule are popular. One of the biggest complaints students have with the new schedule is the 35-minute lunch — reduced from 40 minutes in the previous schedule.
“As an upperclassman, I now realize the importance of those last five minutes,” Verma said. “With 40-minute lunches in the past, students were able to go off campus without feeling rushed.”
Verma added that he would willingly begin school five minutes earlier if that meant having a 40-minute lunch.
According to Gao, who had a seventh period and did swimming along with water polo last year, another con of the new schedule is that seventh periods, which last until 3:45, sometimes conflict with sports. Often, students are forced to miss nearly all of seventh period during an away game. The resulting make-up work and tests result in students’ schedules being even busier.
“Making up work and tests is often more stressful, because we are forced to find time for them,” Gao said. “Sometimes we can’t even make up tests during tutorial because there isn’t enough time.”
Teachers have their concerns with the schedule as well, with the main downside being only seeing students twice a week every other week.
“With the old schedule, I would always see my students three times a week, no matter what,” English teach Erick Rector said. “However, now, I’m in a situation where I see one of my classes only twice. Although instructional minutes themselves haven’t decreased, I prefer meeting face-to-face more often.”
According to principal Paul Robinson, there is a possibility that this schedule will be revised in the next few years. However, he said that the administration will hold off on changes until at least after the 2018-2019 school year, since they believe that three years’ time is necessary to accurately evaluate schedules.
