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Varying Opinions on the New Monday Schedule By Josephina Johnson
Homecoming has come and gone, the leaves are changing color, and the hunt is approaching; all signs that quarter one is about to close. Yet as the school year settles in, one thing still feels out of place to me: the Monday schedule. Although I'm already a junior, I've yet to spend the entire year on one schedule, so it's not surprising that I'm finding our timetables a little confusing. But when it comes to the Monday schedule, I'm not the only one displeased.
Homecoming has come and gone, the leaves are changing color, and the hunt is approaching; all signs that quarter one is about to close. Yet as the school year settles in, one thing still feels out of place to me: the Monday schedule. Although I’m already a junior, I’ve yet to spend the entire year on one schedule, so it’s not surprising that I’m finding our timetables a little confusing. But when it comes to the Monday schedule, I’m not the only one displeased.
Students regularly complain about the new schedule, disparaging it as exhausting and convoluted. We are shunted from class to class with barely enough time to absorb the information while our backs ache from overstuffed book bags and we wonder whether or not we’ll know anyone in our lunch. With twice as many classes, the day feels twice as long and we are expected to hand in seven classes worth of homework. On top of that, we’re assigned work due the very next day. Students are also concerned that the Monday schedule, when combined with frequent early release Wednesdays, leaves little room for Advisory. Several teachers have also reported trouble with the Monday schedule, explaining how difficult it is to cut their curriculum into bite-sized lessons. CTE students and teachers are the most impacted by this, particularly those used to having a double period off-campus. All in all, most people I spoke with find that the Monday schedule is a terrible way to start the week.
But that’s not the whole story. A firm minority of CHS students love the new schedule, regarding it as an invigorating preview to their week. Teachers generally spend Mondays reviewing old material or providing context for later lessons and Monday lovers find this to be a nice breather from the otherwise rapid pace of their studies. Freshmen, in particular, seem to like Mondays the most, as they enjoyed a similar schedule at ASFMS. Monday lovers also find it refreshing to have afternoon classes in the morning, and vice versa. The most common argument in support of the new Monday schedule is that the short classes make the day rush by.
Most students either love or hate the new schedule, with very little in between. However, a nearly negligible minority of CHS students are on the fence. Although they don’t like the shortened periods, they find it preferable to the double A days we endured last year.
As I began to look more deeply into the new schedule, I was told, to my surprise, that CHS used to have this schedule constantly and that we changed to the block schedule in order to accommodate CTE classes. Back then, many students resented what they felt was an overly complicated and needless change, the same way many current students feel about the switch back. From generation to generation, the sentiment is the same: it matters less what the schedule is, and more that it is constant.