Times Are Changing With The New Bell Schedule at SRHS

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Izzy Allen, Contributor

The new bell schedule is causing chaos among the students and staff at SRHS because of the different time, set days, and new final schedule.

At the end of the school year in 2018, there was a debate between the district, school, and other members about whether or not to change the bell schedule at San Rafael High School. 

The district and Mr. Dennis with help from others concluded that the schedule would be changed for the years to come. 

The new schedule has changed from having a block schedule every day of the week to having a traditional day with all seven classes on Mondays, and a block schedule for the remaining four days. Every Tuesday and Thursday are “B days” or periods 4-7 and every Wednesday and Friday are “A days” or periods 1-3 with advisory.

The new schedule was changed by the request of the district office. They wanted to have a schedule more closely aligned with Terra Linda. Mr. Dennis worked closely with different stakeholder groups to create a new schedule. 

Mr. Dennis and the stakeholder groups had to address different problems that came with the previous schedule. 

Some of these problems were, “Increasing the number of contact teachers have with students to 2-3 to consistent 3 per week,” Mr. Dennis says, “have a consistent start and end time Monday through Friday, and keep block scheduling to maintain projects and have longer classes.”

Many students, teachers, staff, and parents have different feelings about the new schedule. 

A common complaint is that the traditional days are pointless because there is not enough time to learn anything new. 

“Traditional days seem useless,” said Kelly Abey, senior at San Rafael High School. “There’s not enough time in class to actually learn anything substantial. 

Another complaint about the new schedule is that there are no more short Fridays. Sophomore Bella Stanger at SRHS shares, “If I could make a change, I would say that we didn’t have advisory on Fridays so we could get out early again.” 

Mr. Dennis states the reason for no more short Fridays is that we have to meet the instructional minute requirement. 

The instructional minute requirement is 64,800 minutes required by law. With 180 school days, we have to maintain a certain average. The average is 240 minutes and can not have less than that but can have some minimum days with 180 minutes. Passing periods are counted towards the minutes but lunch is not. 

With this new change in the schedule, parents have very different views on if the new schedule has helped or has caused more concerns than the original one. 

One mother of a sophomore and senior at SRHS, Ms. Muschi said, “Her kids stay up super late and have all of their homework due on Mondays.”

Another mother, Ms. Bowler, a mother of a junior at SRHS said, “Kids aren’t able to breathe over the weekends because they always have so much homework.” As well as that, “On Mondays our children carry too much in their backpack, making their backs hurt from the weight.”

Although not everyone was against this new transition, some parents, like Molly Monitto, a mother of a senior at SRHS, shared her thoughts of the new schedule, “It’s very nice to know which day is which without having an agenda and it helps for scheduling future appointments.”

For teachers, the new schedule is something they’ve had to adjust too. Many teachers have to change their curriculum to work with the new traditional days because of the short amount of time they have with their classes that day. 

“Mondays are the toughest days out of all of them, the rest of the days are like usual,” said Mr. Springhorn, a physical education teacher at SRHS. “I have to be very organized and have to be prepared for the classes where I don’t have a little break in between.”

From students to parents to teachers to staff, the new schedule has affected many people in both positive and negative ways. Some people embrace the new changes while others are having a harder time adjusting.