In the 2024-2025 year at Riordan, our schedule will be changing, and while change can be good, there are a few cons that come with the new schedule.
This year we started school at 8:35 a.m. every day and ended school at 2:55 p.m. excluding every other Wednesday or Friday. Next year the schedule will change every day, as school will start at a different time depending on if it is a Purple Day or a Gold Day.
On Purple Days, which are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, upperclassmen will have to get to school at 8 o’clock, which is 35 minutes earlier than this year.
Upperclassmen will be released from school at 1:55 p.m., which is an hour earlier than this year.
Underclassmen will start school at 9:15 a.m., which is 40 minutes later than this year, and get out at 3:10 a.m., which is 15 minutes later than this year.
While a good amount of upperclassmen have their license, not all of them do, making it hard.
This will cause trouble for all students as upperclassmen will have to rush to get to school at 8 and underclassmen will have a lot of time to kill with school starting at 9:15.
On Gold Days, which are Tuesdays and Thursdays, the schedule will flip as the underclassmen start at 8 and upperclassmen will start at 9:15. This is going to be very hard as the underclassmen aren’t old enough to drive, so they have to rely on parents to drive them.
Many parents will find it difficult to plan out their week with alternating start times. With the school day starting at different times for upperclassmen and lowerclassmen, this will lead to drop off and pick up confusion, especially if siblings have different start and end times–not to mention how this will affect clubs and athletic teams.
In addition, the complicated schedule itself will lead to confusion, and we can probably expect students to be late to class because they do not know where they are supposed to be.
Riordan is changing a lot, and while some changes are welcomed, this new schedule is going to be difficult to adapt to.
Throughout my first three years here, the schedule has changed every year, but next year I feel it will be the biggest change yet. It will take a lot of time to get used to for students, teachers, and parents.
