PRO:

Seventy minutes every week. Seventy minutes of sleep. Seventy minutes of homework. Seventy minutes not in school.

The new schedule has been successful in alleviating stress and giving us more time in our busy lives. Excluding mandatory tutorials, it gives us back 70 minutes each week in comparison to last year’s block scheduling.

It provides us with regularity that last year’s bell schedule lacked. I no longer have morning anxiety attacks, wondering what day it is, what classes I have, and what I need to bring. Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is exactly the same as the week before.

Not only is the regularity comforting, starting school at 9:10 on Tuesdays and Fridays is great. I can go out for breakfast, go on a run or do homework without having to wake up early. Or I can skip all of that and do what I do best—sleep. We also get out early fifteen minutes early on these days. It may not be a lot, but in school it can feel like an eternity.

Having only three classes on these two days is also a major plus. For students with frees, this means that one day a week, they only have to go to two classes. For me, having one of these short days on a Tuesday breaks up the week nicely, separating the seven-class-Monday schedule from the regular four-class-Wednesday and Thursday block schedules. Then, having the other three-class schedule on Friday makes that day exponentially better than it already is.

The new schedule definitely has its drawbacks—one of them being the Monday lineup. Having every class on Monday means having to complete homework for all of those classes. Whenever the subject comes up, all I hear are worries of having to do seven classes worth of homework on Sunday night. God forbid we manage our time wisely and do homework on Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

The reality is that even though we have seven classes worth of homework due on Mondays, we have more than enough time to complete all of it. I, myself, am a procrastinator and will be one of many students staying up late on Sunday night doing homework. But it’s not the schedule’s fault if this happens; it is my own because I failed to break up my work into managable chunks.

With the new Monday schedule came altered passing periods. They are shortened, but it’s not like five minutes is an unreasonable time frame to accomplish what is meant to be done during the window—which is to move from one class to another. Our campus is small and I’m not exactly a fast traveler, but I’ve been able to successfully travel from the music building to the science building in roughly three minutes.

The biggest concern with the shortened passing periods is the limited time allotted to use the bathroom between classes. Although policies differ from class to class, the majority of teachers do, indeed, allow us to use the bathroom during class. All you have to do is ask. Teachers are on our side and they, too, understand the struggles of a five-minute passing period.

Ultimately we need to stop hating on the new schedule and realize that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Change is how we progress and improve what we already have. This new schedule could be better or it could be worse. The truth is that there is no real way of knowing unless we try it. Instead of tearing it down, we should give it a chance and approach it with an open mind, so that we can continue to make Piedmont High School a better place.

CON:

“No I can’t hangout this weekend I have too much homework.” That is a phrase I have never said in my 12 years of being a student, but with the new schedule change I have said this every weekend but one this year.

Aimed at reducing stress and creating more leniency for extracurricular activities, the new five day block schedule is absolutely horrid. The new schedule was supposed to help relieve stress, but in practice it has only increased it.

Because the new schedule has less in-class time, exactly 50 minutes per week there is more workload thrusted upon us to do at home. There is less time in the classroom, but teachers are not going to teach less throughout the year. Naturally more work will be given to do at home, creating more stress.

Proponents of the schedule will say that students should manage their time more effectively, the big example being homework that will be due on Monday. Teachers will say do it Thursday. But there is a fundamental problem; people making the schedule need to understand the homework habits of students. When creating a schedule to reduce our stress, administrators should understand how students actually do homework. In a perfect world where students are capable of managing their time more effectively any schedule would work. All students would agree that they should do their work earlier rather than later, but in practice that simply does not happen. The point of being a student is learning good time management skills, and the new schedule forces students to already have that skill mastered.

Tuesdays and Fridays students get out 15 minutes earlier because those are the days with the most sport competitions. But school sports are on Tuesdays and Thursdays or Wednesdays and Fridays, depending on the sport. Women’s tennis plays a majority of their matches this fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My sports, men’s soccer and baseball have their games on Wednesdays and Fridays. Sixth period is always on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and seventh is always on Wednesdays and Fridays. I have teammates in baseball that will leave early from AP English seventh period almost every baseball game, putting more pressure on them as they miss that one class constantly.

A schedule that works in a five day rotation works better than a seven, but this five day rotation is flawed. There should be as few classes as possible on Monday. There should be as few repeating classes as possible from over the weekends. The longer, more stressful days like Monday should fall upon Wednesday. Afternoon classes should not be specifically Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Wednesdays and Fridays; they should be split up into seventh period being Mondays and Thursdays, and sixth being Tuesdays and Fridays, with Wednesday having both classes. That would split up the classes that students miss for sports. That would evenly split up the sports missed during sixth and seventh, not allowing a student to get behind in one class.

If people systematically think about what creates student stress, then it is possible to make a new schedule that has appropriate class time, yet still aspects that students enjoy, like late starts on Fridays, and limit stress.