Every year at Englewood High School, the bell schedule changes, and some students say they especially don’t like the 2023 schedule.
Students Davion Fisher, who is a senior, and Paige Shlosman who is a sophomore, think it was very hard to adjust to the new schedule, “classes last year were shorter and times made more sense,” said Shlosman. Both were upset that school ends later, “I’m still trying to get used to this new schedule,” said Shlosman. They both agreed that last year’s schedule was much better and just made more sense overall.
English teacher Mark Fornnarino said that after all his years working here this year’s schedule isn’t his favorite but it’s better than it has been years prior, “the schedule is good and bad, it gives me a little more time to get here and prepare in the mornings, but I don’t really like how it ends later.” Fornnarino also adds that if he could change it he would make each class much shorter, “having a longer lunch and taking like two minutes off each class would be nice but that would affect summer break and other things because of the laws schools must follow.”
According to a study done by the Department of Public Policy, Education Policy Initiative at Carolina, UNC-Chapel Hill, it is a good thing for high school students to start later in the morning. The research found later starts improve the sleep and educational outcomes of teenagers.
The abstract: Later school start times have emerged as a potential policy to improve the sleep and educational outcomes of teenagers. This study uses a quasi-experimental comparative interrupted time series approach to examine a 90-minute delay in start times in an urban district in North Carolina. Results show that the later start time resulted in more sleep for students and improved course grades but limited evidence of benefits to other educational outcomes. In addition, the evidence suggests that disruptions from the change may temporarily decrease some educational outcomes and that these disruption effects are concentrated among low-income students and students of color.
Shlosman says that she would like the classes to end in even numbers such as 0 or 5 because it would make memorizing the schedule easier for her and lots of other students, “Last year’s schedule was way better because it ended earlier and the schedule made more sense, every class ended in an even number so it didn’t take me as long to remember it.”
