The restructuring of the daily schedule has been a complete disaster. For one, those giving senior speeches and those who will be listening have unilaterally complained about the restructuring of the speech structure. For context, the administration is shortening the amount of time for students to give their speeches and is imposing similar, more serious restrictions on senior speech introductions. Speech introductions, quotes, superlatives, and the like are a school tradition. Such traditions will impact students’ experiences in a far greater capacity than five or ten minutes of passing time between periods.

Advisory communities are intended as spaces for students who may not otherwise connect to socialize. The administration’s passing time inclusion directly removes from the length of the Wednesday advisory period, and moving the advisory / X-period time to the afternoon also eliminates the tradition of advisory snacks. In theory, built-in passing time will allow for classes to start on time on a more reliable basis. However, the opportunity to save one or two minutes of class time does not appear to be worth the elimination of school traditions.

If the administration insists on adding five minutes of passing time between block 2 and the early period 3/7, then we should transition back to the schedule of past years and either push back period 3/7 and eliminate 5 minutes from tutorial, which was utilized less effectively than x-period and advisory, or they should eliminate 5 minutes from the morning 10-minute advisory time which, as it is now, isn’t enough time to be spent in a meaningful way beyond a few brief announcements.