New Schedule Review

By Tim Baier

     As we all know, North Warren began running on a rotating drop schedule this year. According to the North Warren website, a drop schedule is described as: Classes follow separate morning, and after lunch rotational patterns. All 8 classes meet 3 times every 4 days. Students meet for 6 out of their 8 classes each day. Each day, one class is "dropped" in the morning rotation; another class is "dropped" in the after lunch rotation.

     This schedule was adopted on belief that it would have positive effects on education and efficiency. The schedule allows for extended period length, meaning that teachers can create longer, more in depth lessons to better their students’ educations. It is also helpful when student athletes need to leave for a game, as they will not have to miss the same class every time. Lunch is 46 minutes long, but for students with science labs that need extra time, the first 25 minutes of lunch are used for labs.

     When the idea for the schedule was first introduced, many people believed that it would be a disaster because the whole school ate lunch at the same time. For those that supported it, it was thought that lunches could be used for students to get extra, more personalized help. They also thought that lunches could be used for club meetings rather than having them before and after school.

     As the first few weeks of school began, people realized that lunch was not crowded especially with outside seating availability. Students and teachers alike were favoring the new schedule. As Mr. Haupt observed, science classes did not lose any time, even though they had less labs. Clubs utilized lunch availability, but some students were struggling to remember what classes they had on a Day 1 compared to a Day 2. This issue was mostly resolved except for the occasional brain fart where someone would walk into the wrong class.

     The most irritating flaw of the schedule is that half days do not contain a lunch period. Some teachers, such as Mrs. Baier say that they let their students eat in their class to make up for the lost lunch time. Another flaw, mainly for students that are involved in many clubs activities and science labs such as Katie Reduzzi, say that having all of these meetings during lunch sometimes interferes with labs or other meetings. Some days, students are left with no time to actually eat any lunch, while others there is plenty of time to eat, study, and socialize.

     The overall opinion on the new schedule is favorable. Students like having longer lunches, which they use for homework or socializing. They like not having every class everyday because it breaks up the day. The downfalls however, are that classes are long and sometimes drag on. Also, days get skipped because of snow days which takes time away from classes.