Molly Price
Staff Writer
With all of the new rules and regulations that have this year—a new principal, new mobile phone rules, new headphone regulations, and new bathroom passport requirements—it may be shocking for students to hear that a scheduling change may be on the horizon. This change will be done to increase instructional time and may include something like block scheduling.
The scheduling committee, made up of Mr. Malone, Ms. Reeder, Ms. Anderson, Mr. Rutledge, Ms. Ryan, Mr. Bachart, Ms. Gomez and Mr. Gaffney, has been exploring the subject of adding more instructional time to the school. The transition to a new schedule is not definite, but is a possibility.
“The benefits of a new schedule are longer periods of instructional time which would increase the contact time between teacher and student at longer blocks, less traveling throughout the day, and more efficient use of time,” said Principal Mr. Malone, chairman of the scheduling committee.
The student body has mixed feelings about the idea of changing the schedule and extending the amount of time you spend within a math or social studies class to be 90 minutes rather than our current 41 minutes.
Bella Dougherty (2015) says: “I like the idea of block scheduling because it would mean having less homework per night.”
If NH-S went to a block schedule it would more than double the time we as students spend in a classroom. This could undoubtedly decrease our amount of homework having more time in class to complete assignments and allow students to better comprehend material with teachers having more time to explain different concepts. Some students may find it difficult to concentrate after sitting for an hour during a lecture and zone off or become bored of the class.
There are a few different types of block scheduling models that could be considered. The different types would have classes change at different times, like every semester, every marking period or even every other day. Either way, it would reduce all homework by half each night because we would only have 4 class periods a day.
Whatever decision is made by the scheduling committee--change to block or stick with the current schedule--the guiding directive is to benefit the students and their academic careers.
