What Do DeMatha Students Think of the New Schedule

With a new school year comes many changes. For example new faces, but this year at DeMatha comes a new schedule. Instead of the A and B days there are now eight days with completely different schedules. Here’s how to break it down, your first two classes of the day will be your last two classes tomorrow. But your other three classes of the day will be completely random, confusing right?

And many students agree, as in an interview with Junior Dylan Adams, he states that “there are more classes so you’re more overwhelmed with the amount of homework.” He also states that he would prefer to “go back to the old schedule.” When asked why, he states that “it doesn’t give you that day to complete homework,” also he feels that the schedule was “easy and gave you time to do clubs during flex.” DeMatha has a very diverse scene of clubs, ranging all the way from chess to fishing. But with the removal of flex, when do you have time to host or participate in clubs? Sophomore Michael Manley, who is also the president and founder of the DeMatha Fishing Club, says that with the removal of flex “it’s harder to start a club this year”. When asked if having clubs during homeroom could be a solution he says that “people may have work. …but I just found it a lot easier to hold meetings during flex since during homeroom there would just be classes in the room.” Okay, so homeroom wouldn’t work, what about after school?  “It would be hard since everyone has sports after school” stated Manley. 

And no, not everyone on campus feels this way. French teacher Mr. Connerman states that he does like the new schedule, as “in general the classes are a good length, just long enough to get a lot of group exercises done and not too long that the students get tired.” When asked about the amount of material he’s able to teach, he says he’s able to teach “more material, or at least the same amount of material maybe in a little more depth.”

However, when asked about planning, he feels the problem is that “there’s a quick turn around between different classes, and the old schedule I had a max of 2 preps a day and with the new schedule there are 3 preps a day. …it’s a little harder to plan stuff, it’s harder to keep track of what’s going on in each specific class.”

While the school year is very young, it is interesting to see how students are reacting to the schedule changes. While the schedule works for many and doesn’t work for others,  it could be useful to implement new changes for next year to meet the needs of everyone on campus, from the students to the staff.