A new schedule released for the 2024-2025 year to fit the growing number of students. Major changes to the schedule include an extra block to the school day, alternating start and end times each day, and shorter passing periods.
Each day will either be a Purple Day or a Gold Day.
Purple Days take place Monday, Wednesday, and Friday where juniors and seniors are in class by 8:00 a.m., but are dismissed at 1:55 p.m. Freshman and sophomores arrive on school campus by 9:10 a.m., and end their school day at 3:10 p.m.
Gold Days take place on Tuesday and Thursday, where the inverse is true.
Vanessa Gonzaga ’27 said, “I may be late on the days it starts at 8.”
Guajardo added, “It might be hard to adjust back and forth with late and early schedules.”
A major modification to the schedule is the addition of another block. To resolve issues such as crowded hallways and students unable to get courses they requested, a fifth block was introduced.
Nate Simon ’99, Vice Principal of Academics, said, “When you can spread your classes out among five periods instead of four, you essentially create a new building that can house a quarter of the school.”
“Now blocks 1-4 have seven empty classrooms each, so we essentially built seven new classrooms that we didn’t have this year in that scenario.”
Due to the amount of space it created, it allowed for the construction of a new counseling center which will be built in classrooms 119 and 120.
Simon added, “All classes that have students from multiple grade levels will take place in blocks 2, 3 and 4 in Semester 1 or blocks 7, 8 and 9 in Semester 2. Only classes that have only upper class students will occur in blocks 1 and 6 and only classes with only lower class students will occur in blocks 5 and 10.”
The passing periods have shortened from ten minutes to five minutes for next year.
Simon stated, “The… reason we had… 10 minute passing periods was so that students had time to go to the bathroom and teachers had time to get between classrooms … In next year’s schedule, you’ll notice that there is a break like Breakfast, R-time or lunch between many of the periods so there will be plenty of time to go to the bathroom, and… teachers… should be moving…less in this…schedule because they won’t have to move between so many classes, so there isn’t as much of a need for the longer passing period.”
“Also, there are several periods in the day…where only half the students will be moving through halls at once, so there will be… fewer students trying to use the bathroom at those times as well.”
Guajardo said, “I do not think this is enough time because of how long the line builds up for the bathroom, even with a 10 minute passing period this is an issue.”
Javen Lau ’27 said, “Pros: handles more students during the day, Lets students learn with no activities in the way, Get to school later, get out of school earlier. Cons: no more half day, wake up earlier, get out later.”
Simon stated, “Like anything that is new, it will take some getting used to so I think will be a con for a little while. I also don’t love that it is more complicated than our current schedule. The 1/5 flip will be difficult to get used for sure. I like when things are simple and this isn’t as simple.”
