The district, school board and staff will be implementing an adjustment to the school’s bell schedule, potentially changing it to a Block Schedule in this upcoming year. The block schedule will provide longer class periods, offer curricular opportunities and have fewer classes throughout the day.

A block schedule is set up as four periods a day with 80-100 minutes per period, compared to a Traditional Schedule set up as six periods a day, with approximately 50 minutes per period. The block schedule allows students more time at the end of each class.

Students said some classes with teachers who prefer shorter lectures will have students who are sitting in class doing absolutely nothing.

With the block schedule, there is a concern about more working time during each class period and that means more time for students to mess around instead of doing their classwork.

With a traditional block schedule, each period will rotate each semester. This means students will have two core curricular periods first and second semester, and two extracurricular periods first and second semester.

One student explained that they would have math and English one semester, and science and history next. That means they will be almost a year out of math or a year out of English.

Because of the class rotations, the subjects students will be learning about in their first semester will not be fresh in their mind for next year. This will potentially make it harder for their classes next year, especially since students have less time with that curriculum.

In a traditional schedule, a student will get 9,000 minutes of class time for each course in a year. For a block schedule they get less time for each curriculum, with only 8,100 minutes a year.

While students will technically have more time for homework during one class period, they will still have to get through an entire year’s worth of material in a semester.

Because of this, students will get less time for each subject, which would likely make it even more difficult to retain information and learn the course’s curriculum properly and efficiently.

Since classes will be so long, students may also have a hard time focusing for the full class period. Studies show that most high school students are only able to focus on lectures for 15-30 minutes, which then in they will have to factor in sleep, interest in the topic and the amount of time the lecture takes.

Focusing for that long could be a struggle for some students, given how long each class will be.

Students could also have learning disabilities that can make it harder for them to follow along with a longer lecture, pay attention to the material and stay on task in class.

Overall, changing the schedule will not be a good decision for the school. It will do more harm to the school and students than help. Based on this, it would be best for the school to refrain from changing to a block schedule.