A couple years ago, instead of lengthening each class to accommodate ASPIRE testing, the freshmen and sophomores came in at the regular time to test and were later joined by the upperclassmen around ten. The school day would be short, and it was perfect. Our perfect schedule was ruined last year, and any hope of its return was dashed at the start of this week. There is a wealth of reasons to go back to the old schedule.
The current ASPIRE testing schedule cuts APP from the schedule, which is a huge blow. APP is a great time for students to catch up on work and get help from teachers. Students with a lot of after-school activities can lean on the extra 40 minutes to help stay caught up. A full week of no APP really hurts.
It’s not like cutting APP provides the regular classes any meaningful amount of time. Each class gets 11 minutes, or 10 if you’re fourth period. What that effectively does is turn the 20 minutes of work time at the end of class into 31 minutes, dragging already long classes into a never-ending pit of boredom.
This is all without mentioning how much the upperclassmen would enjoy the time off. If we are going to be in school, we’d like our time to be spent well. If not, please send us home, where I can at the very least finish getting my eight hours. I can almost guarantee that my time this week would be better spent at home.
All the problems with this schedule are accentuated by the absolute lack of communication. Lots of students came into the week completely unaware of the schedule change, with next to no way to actually find the information. The weekly Husky Strong Newsletter neglects to mention the schedule change, and the school calendar doesn’t even list the testing. I would have appreciated at least a poster in the halls or something.
Attempts to reach members of the administration staff for comment were unsuccessful. This article will be updated with a response, but for now, the case remains for a return to the schedule of years past.