The New Schedule

Finally, it’s back. What everyone has been waiting so long for. Football? Nope. A new season of Cobra Kai? No. School, of course! Who doesn’t like hours of homework, tests, and presentations? The stress of managing your school work with your extracurriculars? Staying up late to finish your essays or math homework?

This year we also looked forward to…a new schedule. Instead of having 40-minute periods, we now have 55-minute periods and the number of classes we have per day has decreased. Because the old one was so bad and gave everyone problems, right?

Now, students are forced to suffer through an additional 15 minutes of classes with no mandatory break in between. For many classes, this is really not that big a deal, but for a double science class, the extended time can feel like a hurdle, even if you are learning about all those elements. These longer class periods can make it harder for students to concentrate and increase the already-high chance of them dozing in class. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, give it a couple months.

Another big change that came with the schedules this year is the lunch periods. Instead of four lunch periods, there are now two. Last year, there were so many people stuffed in the cafeteria that the seats in the back literally all broke by June. Imagine what it is going to be like this year!

Students are using the entire campus as their cafeteria, leading to some unfortunate encounters with teachers. As amusing as it is for all the people in that class, it’s embarrassing for those getting yelled at. I’m sure no seventh grader wants to serve as the entertainment for some older students, yet so many already have. People are choosing different places to eat and are making sure to leave their mark (i.e. bottles and wrappers).. Seriously, how hard is it to put your trash in the bin ten feet away? Kids these days, am I right?

Another weird thing with the schedule is that there is an eight-day cycle and that the timing of your classes changes every single day. I guess they thought that high school was just too easy and that kids should have yet another thing to have to memorize. We will have to end up memorizing all eight days of the schedule with the limited brain power we have. This will be a major problem for people like me who can’t remember what they had for breakfast that same day.

It doesn’t help that our school day is now longer than ever, as it now starts five minutes earlier and ends 5 minutes later than it did last year. This may not seem like much, but the earlier start will chip away at the sleep we get. I think we all deserve the extra minutes of relaxation before confronting hectic days with multiple tests and presentations.

A good part of our day has also become slightly worse. The free periods we get are way too long and boring. What are we supposed to do with all that time? Homework? Nah. It wouldn’t be high school if we didn’t procrastinate. So what do we do during those egregiously long free periods? Well games, of course, assuming the school wifi holds us.

Although the new schedule has been at times very difficult to get used to, we will adjust and adapt to it over time. I know our classes have never felt and been this long before, but we may start to see the benefits of this, like when you actually understand a lesson about important Renaissance figures. So, maybe the new schedule is not the greatest thing in the world, but it certainly isn't the worst. We will overcome the challenges associated with it the way we Edgemont students always do—complaining until we forget the problem.