Archbishop Riordan High School announced that a new bell schedule will be instituted next year which faced controversy among the Riordan community. Changes to the schedule include having “Purple and Gold Days” throughout the week, adding a new block, and changing the time school starts and ends depending on whether a day is purple or gold.
On Purple days, school starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 1:55 PM. On gold days, school starts at 9:15 am and ends at 3:10 pm. Purple days occur on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while Gold days occur on Tuesday and Thursday. All purple and gold days have a fifth block, including academic resources, intramural sports, and other activities.
In addition, passing periods have been reduced to five minutes and the morning drop-off line will be removed.
The new changes to the schedule will allow for many benefits. To start, classes will end earlier on some days while they will start later on some days.
Classes ending at 2 p.m. on Purple days, will allow students to go home earlier and relax while giving them time for other activities such as homework and extracurriculars.
Also, practices will start at 3:15 so that the extra hour gives time for students to do their homework and study. After practice, athletes tend to be unmotivated after practice, so going to an extra place to do that homework will help them catch up with their schoolwork.
While classes will end up starting 30 minutes earlier, school ends one hour earlier. The early start shouldn’t impact sleep schedules heavily– if students need the time to get ready or go to sleep, they can wake up a few minutes earlier.
School starting at 9:15 a.m. on Gold days will allow students to catch up on sleep earlier. To compare with the schedule right now, classes will only end up ending 20 minutes later while school ends up starting 45 minutes later.
If students decide to come to school at the same time they do now, the extra morning period will allow them to finish any homework they have due on that particular day or study for a test they have later that day.
Since sophomores and freshmen will use one schedule and juniors and seniors will use another, it’ll eliminate the drop-off line in the morning. The extra space created by making A and B days will also allow students to get the classes they want.
Overall, the new schedule will provide benefits that will be beneficial to a student’s academic, social, and athletic life.
