The Proposed Bell Schedule: The Talk in the Halls..

*Ring Ring* The new bell schedule is in! Last week, DAA introduced a new bell schedule for high schoolers and it was tested out for a full week. Although this schedule was introduced for a week, it is only a proposed schedule, meaning that this is not a final change. After interviewing a few high school students and the dean of students, Mrs. Oswald, I have found that there are many conflicting opinions on this new change. 

The Student Interviews

After interviewing 7 students, their responses were all really similar; they were unhappy with the proposed schedule. When they were asked how they felt about this change, they all agreed that it was definitely something new and that it was a good change to try out, however, they also felt that 10 minutes of passing time is unnecessary since most people start to move in the last two minutes anyway. When asked about whether they preferred the new or old schedule, a large majority of the students (6 students) said that they preferred the old schedule because they felt that a longer break was more beneficial to them. During the interviews, a similar concern was voiced by the students, and this concern was that break was shortened by 10 minutes, making it only 15 minutes long. Many students offered their suggestions, one of which was to take 5 minutes off of third block to add it to break time. 

Mrs. Oswald’s Interview

There were many questions that were asked by the students and I thought that Mrs. Oswald would give the high schoolers their answers. The first thought that occurred to all when hearing about the new schedule was: what promoted this change? After interviewing Mrs. Oswald, we now know the answer to this question and it is that there were a lot of students and parents that requested for more passing time. From this interview, it was also found that there was a slight reduction in tardies, all except for the period right after break, which was to be expected because break was a little bit shorter. For the rest of the periods, the tardy count was down. When asked about which schedule she preferred, Mrs. Oswald answered that she preferred the new schedule, both personally and professionally, because she thinks it is important not just for students, but also for teachers, to have a longer break between classes and that a lot of the teacher feedback was that they were able to do more things in between blocks. Also, a concern about the suggestion of adding the 5 minutes to break is that the middle school lunch would be intruded on if this change is made. A final decision about this schedule change has not been made yet and this decision will be made after an official collection of feedback from teachers, students, and parents is done. 

A final note from Mrs. Oswald: “I think it’s important for students to know that the focus of school is to be in class learning.”

After a lot of talk about the new schedule, it is now known that there has not been a final decision made about this schedule and if it will actually be implemented. There are many different opinions about this new change within the student body and teachers but after interviewing both groups of people, both their concerns and what they liked about this schedule are clear.