South Salem High School has changed their schedule this year. Monday was made an all-period day; advisory was moved to be only on Tuesdays in order to make way for 90 minute periods. Sounds decent on paper, but just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it will work in practice.
We ran a poll asking if people thought the new schedule was better than last year’s. At the time of writing, 71 out of 154 respondents (46%) said they liked the new schedule, with the remaining 85 (54%) disagreeing. This means that 8% more people think that the new schedule is worse than last year’s.
Personally, I like the removal of advisory for longer periods, but I do not see why the Monday schedule was chosen. There is a period for every class, but you only get 41 minutes (for all but one period) per class. I personally do not think that is enough time to get much done, especially in more time-heavy classes like Math or Science. These types of classes require explanation before the material is given, but often there is only time for the explanation portion. However, it does simplify the A and B day schedule as there is now an even amount of normal days, keeping them equal and consistent every week. Reaching consistency by largely wasting a day every week does not seem like the right approach to me, though.
Although the majority of respondents said the schedule was worse, the results of the poll are a lot more split than I expected. I would guess this comes down to some people not having a problem with Mondays being less productive, making them more of an introduction to what the class will be doing during the week rather than an actual period. While most people prefer the old approach, there is still a significant amount of people who think the new one is an improvement.
