In Stamford High School, there’s currently a rotating “block schedule” with six classes a day and seven classes in total. Recently, there was talk of switching to a schedule with a maximum of four classes a day with up to eight classes in an entire student schedule. While Stamford High has decided to stick with the current schedule for now, this is just a one year delay for a future switch. In 2020, the plan is to flip over to block scheduling.

Connecticut has decided to raise the number of credits needed to graduate beginning with the class of 2023 from 20 to 25. Since the required credits were raised, some people believe adding an extra class would help students reach the 25 credits required to graduate. However, students need to know they have to take school seriously and can’t take additional classes for granted. Some students are irresponsible with their time management skills and end up brushing off work with their current schedules anyways. In their eyes, an eighth class would just be as expendable as all others.They would see it as just a burden rather than a helpful step toward graduation. I think we should keep the schedule we have now because it balances out class time nicely with each teacher and it mixes up student’s’ day, making them more likely to feel engaged in classes. If the schedule was changed students might be unmotivated to participate and feel easily bored with school since it would be so repetitive.

The Academy of Information Technology & Engineering already uses this type of schedule. After speaking with Todd Griffin, a junior who attends AITE, this is what he had to say: “I used to go to Stamford High and once I came to AITE I hated the schedule, but after a while you get used to it. But if I had to choose I’d go with the Stamford High schedule.”

Some students believe the “four classes a day” schedule is too repetitive with extremely long class times. Meanwhile, no one is complaining about the current schedule. I believe we should stick with the schedule that we have currently.