One of the fastest growing discussions involving our school revolves around a change with our schedule.
Currently, there are two proposals , one of which will replace our beloved bell schedule.
Our job as part of the Paly community is to decide between the two. A wise man once said, “between excess and defect lies the truth.” By keeping the good aspects of both the current bell schedule and a proposed four-day block bell schedule, a blocked seventh schedule offers the most benefits to both students and teachers. When a committee of 30 staff members and teachers plans to meet next Thursday to discuss the best bell schedule, I believe they should endorse a blocked seventh schedule.
The first proposal is the four-day block schedule, which incorporates three to four block periods per day for the first four days of the week and leaves Friday unblocked.
The second proposal is the blocked seventh schedule, which is similar to the current bell schedule except that, yes, seventh period becomes a block period on Wednesday.
A recent Voice article provided some insight on how the community feels about the proposals.
While there are multiple reasons for and against the proposals from all different perspectives, almost everyone agrees that there needs to be a change to the current schedule. A recent poll conducted by the planners behind the schedule changes found that 81 percent of students surveyed and 82 percent of the staff wanted to start school after 8 a.m. Accordingly, both of the proposals have start times of 8:05 a.m.
Moreover, a common complaint about the current system is that it lacks a time slot built into the schedule that allows for students to meet with not just their advisers but also their teachers. Both proposals also fit this in with a period labeled “tutorial.”
Given that change is going to occur, it is up to Paly to decide which of the two options it prefers. Personally, I find that blocking seventh period is the best bet, and there are many reasons supporting this.
First, instead of splitting up classes into two 50-minute periods, blocked seventh periods allow for teachers to give their students the same type of activities and curricula that other students in different periods also get. Currently, many teachers find that splitting up scheduled student activities is not conducive to a better learning environment and does not give students enough time to really let a rigorous lesson soak in. The same poll found that about 73 percent of the staff would support a bell schedule that blocked seventh period, accurately reflecting this common perspective.
Moreover, students’ objections to blocking seventh period, namely that they will get out later in the day, will be addressed by the fact that the school day will end at the same time as every other day. The blocked seventh schedule still keeps the early dismissal time on Thursdays. While pushing everything back later in the day could be a problem for some student athletes, the fact remains that pushing back the dismissal time would happen to both plans regardless of which one will be implemented. This means that the administration and teachers have to compensate for this change by either really making an effort to give out preps for seventh period or assigning less academically rigorous courses to that time slot.
Most importantly, a blocked seventh period schedule avoids the slew of problems that a four-day block schedule would bring. As currently displayed in the proposal, the four-day block schedule shows that students will meet with their classes at most only three times a week, not counting a “collaboration” time and two tutorial meetings on Tuesday and Thursday.
However gratifying an engaging class may be to an interested student, other students will have to endure a less enjoyable 90-minute classes two or three times per week.
Also, the consequences for missing a class, either due to an excused or unexcused absence, are compounded because the class only meets for three days. That means that missing a block period (two out of three possible weekly meetings) would imply missing one and a half hours out of a total of three hours and 50 minutes of class time—for every class that a student misses. Think of how devastating that would be in science courses, for example, where it becomes near impossible to make up a missed experiment. Or imagine the impact that would have on missing math, where missing one lesson in the current schedule could set a student back all the way to the day of the test.
Moreover, meeting three days out of five would harm the makeup of language classes and many career and vocational education programs. Research has consistently shown that students need to be immersed in a language in order to better understand and learn that language; meeting for three alternating days during the week definitely would not help that process. Also, student journalists would also miss out on regularly scheduled meetings with their advisers and their staff, making group discussions very hard and increasing the amount of stress production weeks put on students. Likewise, choir, band, and theater classes, to name a few, would all encounter scheduling problems that might necessitate meetings outside of school. Extra meetings would just increase a student’s workload and stress level.
Finally, whereas student athletes could possibly miss a non-block day’s sixth or seventh period on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, a four-day block schedule additionally harms student athletes because they consistently miss block periods and only see their teachers for less than half of the days in a week.
The blocked seventh schedule looks structured to be a compromise of the current bell schedule and the four day block schedule. Seeing as it takes the best from both sides, it currently seems to be the best bet.
Remember, everyone can get their thoughts to the planners by submitting feedback and thoughts on the issue to [email protected].