Rolling block schedule finalized

Despite concerns voiced by some parents and students earlier in the year, the 2016-2017 school year will have a rolling block schedule with each day starting at 8:15, 25 minutes later than in the current schedule, as well as a shortened lunch period.

So-called red days will include periods 1, 3, 5 and 7, while blue days will include periods 2, 4 and 6, and every day will include a 35-minute tutorial after the first class and a 35-minute lunch, 5 minutes shorter than the current one.

Following intense opposition by some parents to a schedule recommended by a committee of teachers and parents in January, superintendent Bob Mistele decided to adopt Los Gatos High’s rolling block schedule at SHS, but that schedule has been slightly modified so that both schools will start at 8:15 a.m., rather than the 8 a.m. start time Los Gatos had used previously.

In the past few months, some in the community have expressed concern over the shortened lunch period. According to principal Paul Robinson, there was ultimately no easy solution to this problem: To have a later start time, a major goal of the new schedule, lunch had to be shorter if the day’s end time was to be relatively the same.

Keeping the community’s concerns in mind, the administration will assess how well the schedule works for the upcoming year to see if there will be any potential improvements for the schedule in the future.

“Do we feel that there might be a possibility of changing something even in the future? Who knows. There’s always that possibility,” Robinson said. “While I know there was a huge amount of support for the first schedule that we proposed, that may be where we end up ultimately some day, but who knows.”

Robinson thinks that the rolling block schedule will be successful.

“It’s really good that the school is willing to take this very bold step,” he said.