Having gone to school here since my freshman year, it feels like I was just finally getting used to the schedule that was so different from the one I was familiar with in grade school. It took me three years to finally know the schedule here at La Salle by heart, and then seemingly out of nowhere it changes, and my confusion started all over again. Although there are many pros and cons, overall, I feel mostly good about the new block schedule.

Among the many positives of this change are that we get more time with our teachers each day, which gives a better opportunity to learn much more and get more done in about the same amount of class time per week. The students get more time to understand a concept with their teacher and do more activities to help them understand the material.

The best thing about the new schedule is that classes are every two days, giving me more time to complete all of my homework. The homework load is about the same as before, but it feels a lot easier as we have more time to do it.

Another big perk is the late start on Fridays. When I heard that school was going to start at 8:50 once a week I didn’t think it was going to be that much different, but I love it! Fifty extra minutes in the morning actually does make a real difference, and is a great addition to the schedule.

However, with the positives come some negatives as well. For certain subjects, an hour and a half class is just way too long. To be completely honest, I think the longer the class period is, the more time it could give students to zone out and not pay attention. It also makes being sick more difficult, because more material is missed when you’re absent. These are the only big negatives I have noticed, but the reality is that no matter how many changes are made to the schedule, there will always be some people who don’t like it or want it a different way.

I think that as a teacher, especially for foreign languages, the longer classes could be pretty challenging. Having to come up with activities to keep the students entertained and on task seems like it could be difficult. However, all of the teachers I have this year are doing a good job to keep the classes flowing and sometimes the classes seem just as short as the 46 minute periods last year.

Obviously there are some great perks to the new schedule, but with those perks come some flaws, too, and that’s why, to me, the new schedule seems like a mostly good change overall.