By Skye Milburn
Bell schedules can be different for every high school, so who’s to say what the best way to go about one is? My goal was to find out what people at my school, Benicia High, thought about our current schedule and if it’s working for them or not. I decided to interview three students from my school to see what opinions they had on the topic. Read on to see what I found.
I asked each respondent eight questions and asked them to explain why they felt the way they did. The questions I asked included:
Do you think the current bell schedule is working?
Should we keep block days with access periods?
Should we make every day a block day?
Does school start too late/early? What time do you think school should start?
Do you think Benicia High School students are getting enough sleep with the current bell schedule and school work/other activities in mind?
What are some ways students could better manage their time to get enough sleep? Do they need to adjust their personal schedules to fit the school schedule?
Some schools have three or four period days every day and change courses every semester. Do you think we should follow this schedule? Is it better or worse than our school schedule?
Is lunch too crowded? Should we adjust our school schedule to have two lunch periods?
After asking these questions and having the students respond, I picked the best response for each question
Do you think the current schedule is working? “Yes, I like having a mix of block and regular days,” said Natalie Andrews, 11th grade.
Should we keep block days with access periods? “Yes, I think access periods are a very helpful time for students who need to catch up on work or receive additional tutoring,” said Johannes Smiell, 10th grade.
Should we make every day a block day? “Yes, we should make every day a block day because the extra access periods would greatly increase student productivity,” said Katherine Luellen, 11th grade.
Does school start too late/early? What time do you think school should start? “I believe that school starts too early; just changing the bell schedule for classes to start at 9 or even 9:30 would drastically improve attendance rates,” said Johannes Smiell, 10th grade.
Do you think Benicia High School students are getting enough sleep with the current bell schedule and schoolwork/other activities in mind? “No, students do not get enough sleep because all the schoolwork/extracurricular activities are extremely time-consuming,” reported Katherine Luellen, 11th grade.
What are some ways students could better manage their time to get enough sleep? Do they need to adjust their schedules to fit the school schedule? Our time responsibly is the key, and if students spent less time scrolling TikTok or Instagram, it would lead to an increase in productivity. Students shouldn’t need to adjust their schedule if it’s more important to them,” said Johannes Smiell, 10th grade.
Some schools have 4-period or even 3-period days and classes every semester. Do you think we should follow this schedule? Is it better or worse than our schools? “Schools? Students are fulfilling their credits, should be able to take as many periods as they want, or as few. I don’t think changing the schedule that much would be very beneficial to students,” stated Natalie Andrews, 11th grade
Is it too crowded? Do you think we should adjust our schedule to have 2 lunch periods? Periods? It’s not too crowded, and a schedule change isn’t necessary. I sit in the lunch hall every day, and there are always enough chairs for me and my friends to use,” proclaimed Johannes Smiell, 10th grade.
With all these interview questions and responses in mind, it is clear that BHS students want a change to the bell schedule, and most aspects aren’t working for them. Changes to the current schedule would be overall beneficial and would allow students here to get more sleep and have more time to finish all their work.
Hopefully, high school takes these changes into consideration, because it’s apparent that changes need to be made.
beniciapaw.com 