As part of an initiative to increase teacher collaboration, late start Mondays have been implemented to give teachers more time to work on their curriculums. On such days, students begin first period at 10:15 a.m. as opposed to the normal time of 9 a.m., and seventh period ends at the usual time of 3:50 p.m., with each class period being 35 minutes instead of 45. Staff attended a meeting from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. to work with other teachers who teach the same courses.
The Paly Voice interviewed Palo Alto High School students to find out what they think about the new change.
“It was a nice opportunity to sleep in, but it wasn’t as fulfilling as maybe a full Monday off would have been. The shorter periods were hard because none of the classes got anything done. I’d prefer if we lost lunch instead of cutting off periods so that classes can be a little longer.” — junior Alice Jambon |
“It was nice to get to talk to people from other departments about how their work is going, and it gave me clarity around what the right next step for the English department is. … Time is the thing that teachers always feel like there’s never enough of, so anytime there’s additional time for us to sit down and work and collaborate, students benefit from that.” —English teacher Melissa Laptalo |
“Even though I got to sleep in more, I wasn’t used to only being able to sleep in an hour. The whole day didn’t feel like we did anything, and it was just a lot less productive than normal Mondays.” — junior Eddy Miao |
“It [Monday] was interesting; class periods were really short so it wasn’t very productive. A lot of classes forgoed work entirely. … Overall I thought it was great for a small break … I got up at the same time [as usual] and did even more work.” — senior Sabine Chang |
“I liked being able to sleep in until 10. I think ending school earlier would be more beneficial though, especially because a lot of people have stuff to do after school. It would make more sense to stop earlier to accommodate that than to sleep a bit more.” — freshman Rylie Reklis |
