Student Voice: Rumors of Schedule Change

As of recent, I have been hearing rumors around the school that there will be significant schedule changes happening in the 2018-2019 school year. Most of the student responses I have heard have been negative, so I decided to look deeper and actually figure out what was going on. I started with asking some students about what they think of the schedule change and about what they think is going on. A big concern coming from the students is that they think that flex and study time are going to be taken out of the schedule. The students say that flex and study is needed and that many if not most students use it efficiently. Another common mention was that the students felt that the teachers need to talk with the students about making changes before actually changing the schedule.

The student opinion on this topic seems to be relatively negative. After interviewing the students, I managed to bump into Mr. Gelenian, who seems to be one of the people in charge of making a change. After talking with him, I can say that I still don’t know much about the future changes. Quite frankly, no one really knows about what is actually going to happen. What I got from Mr. Gelenian was that the schedule is pretty much the same, but he’s trying to find space for teacher work time in the schedule. I have no idea about when this time would be. I believe he said this could enable more teachers to work together which he thinks will be a good thing.

Because the students haven’t been informed about anything that is happening, this has built some sort of fear within the student population. They don't know what is going to happen, so they assume that nothing good will come out of the change. I will say that the teachers probably do not intend to upset the students, so they will probably do their best to accommodate the students' wants. Do I think the students should still be concerned? Yes I do. Nothing huge may come out of the change, but is important for the student population to at least be in the loop with what is going on.

Without student involvement, fear has been created within the population which is not good. For those who will be here next year and who are concerned about the change, then try to get involved. Perhaps asking a teacher about the change may not be a bad idea. They can hear your thoughts, and you can also hear there's. Although no one is really sure about what is going on, try to stay tuned because big changes may be happening in the future.