The new season brings with it, in addition to icy roads and mittened hands, a very new schedule.
As you’ve likely noticed, rather than the usual hour-long break time that non-tutorial students have been granted the past two years, the new tutorial change—attaching tutorial to second period rather than third or fourth—essentially forces all students to have study time.
While this change was made to increase student-teacher accessibility, there are much larger things to consider as well.
Many students, including myself, use the whole block of tutorial and lunch to finish major work, work requiring the entire hour.
Often, the hour is merely a continuation of what students are already working on in class. This is very common in the arts classes, especially for students who are behind.
In newspaper and yearbook, classes preceding and following tutorial, it was very convenient to call students and teachers in for interviews; now, it will be extremely frustrating to schedule these meetings.
Not to mention, students are less than satisfied with the move. Senior Amber Lucas used to go home at lunch, but now she doesn’t “have the time to drive there, eat, and drive back and still be on time”.
Senior Kristine Madsen also has experienced some difficulty with the time allotted to get things done, “The teacher I need to access doesn’t have enough time to help me,” Madsen said in frustration.
The tutorial change does take care of what it was intended to, though. Mr. Adam Strong, video production and digital photo teacher, agrees with the change, along with 77 other teachers, out of 87 surveyed. “I’ve found that most of my students who are doing poorly in my class have second lunch [while I have first]. I definitely prefer to have access to all my students at once,” Strong said supportively.
Overall, this change will take a lot of getting used to, for both students and staff. Only one lab will be opened to the hundreds of students who don’t have tutorial, limiting the kind of work students will be able to accomplish. The reason we implemented two lunches in the past was to cut down on overcrowding, which invited dangerous situations.
But with this new schedule, there are only so many places students can be (the den, library, or computer lab), which may easily stir up this problem once again.
Students should be allowed to leave campus because that will free up space inside the school, and potentially create a safer environment during the half hour we’re forced to spend out of class.
Only time will tell if this new schedule will stick; the trend of the past points to a no, since we’ve had various different schedules from year to year. Student and teacher reception, along with academic and safety information, will be the ultimate deciders here.
Hopefully, in the future, we’ll be able to find and stick to a schedule that will benefit everybody.