A visible change to the new school year at George Washington High School is the transition from a traditional six-classes-a-day school schedule to a block schedule. The new schedule sets Wednesdays and Thursdays as block days in which the amount of classes a day is cut down in favor for more instructional time.

     With the first grading period over, although it could use some minor changes to improve it, the recently adopted block schedule has already proven itself to be significantly better than Washington’s old schedule. In a Facebook poll surveying fifty students, the majority – forty two students are in favor of the block schedule as opposed to the two who do. “I just like how my favorite classes are extended,” says junior, Tracey Wheeler. “I absolutely love the new block schedule.”

     Although on block schedule days, there are fewer class periods, instructional time is extended a whole half an hour. With a longer class period, teachers are forced to rethink their curriculum and be more creative with their lessons, thus making students engage more in class. This increases the opportunity of learning more since students are given more time to ask questions, participate and absorb information. “There’s more time to do activities and especially labs if you’re teaching a science class,” said first year Physics teacher, Mr. De Wolf said,   “It also gives me more time to connect with my students.”

     Another perk to the block schedule is a longer lunch period. The longer lunch period not only gives students the opportunity to take their leisure in getting their food and converse with friends, it also results in less chances of getting tardies.

     Having block schedule also provides students extra time to complete their homework and study for their first, third, fifth and seventh period classes on block-schedule Wednesdays since they don’t have those classes again until Friday. This allows for more flexibility and results in higher chances of getting doing better academically in classes, especially if they require more attention.

     One of the improvements that should be made to the block schedule would be changing the 8:00 start time for Thursdays to 8:30. This is because people with late schedule are more used to timing their schedules to arriving to school on 8:30 whether it be through public transportation or car. The 8:00 start time is an issue of the block schedule because it throws late schedule people off and results in tardies for their 2nd period class.