As the school year comes to an end, many students are beginning to think about the next school year. For several years now, the school has put out the idea of having a block schedule. This would mean that classes are longer, but our normal schedule would be spread out over two days. While this is not happening next year, it is still possible that RCHS could implement a block schedule in future years.
According to University of the People, block scheduling is when classes are on a rotation, and therefore there
are fewer classes per day and is typically used in middle and high schools. University of the People also says that science and math classes are more likely to experience lower scores on end-of-year tests when block schedules are implemented.
While this may be helpful in some classes, such as science classes where longer class periods would mean more time for labs, it would also cause burnout in students. Since the number of classes over the year would be cut in half, more than one lesson would have to be crammed into one class period. This makes it harder to actually learn the content, as our brains get overwhelmed with too much information at once.
It would also cause some students to be less interested in classes, since the attention span of high schoolers is not as long as the attention span of adults with fully developed brains, and many people depend on the change in classes in order to remain interested.
Block scheduling would also cause scheduling problems for teachers. If we have a snow day, for example, classes on the day that was missed would be a day behind the classes that did not miss that day.
Additionally, kids that miss a day will miss more content in a block schedule than they would
in a traditional schedule. They would miss two lessons instead of one, causing them to have more make-up work to do, which could put them even further behind in their classes.
There are two types of block schedules, both of which can cause problems. The traditional block schedule, where classes occur every day but change each semester, can cause students to forget important information that will be needed on end-of-year exams, such as AP tests. A/B block schedules, where classes occur every other day, causes classes to be on different schedules if days of school are missed.
While block scheduling does have its pros, I think that RCHS should continue with the traditional schedule instead of transitioning to a block schedule in future years.
