Monday, Feb 29th brought a new trial schedule to WA that aimed to reduce student stress during the school day. The more notable changes to the schedule included a time increase from four to five minutes between class periods, and a ten minute “academic break” after second block.

Unfortunately, the schedule change did not do much to alleviate student stress, as the time provided is not nearly enough to allow students to reduce stress. The allotted ten minutes is immediately reduced to around 7 or 6 after they get from their second block class to wherever they want to go to relax. Furthermore, by the time students are finally actually relaxed, they have run out of time, and need to get moving to their next class. The only thing students actually get out of this break is a little extra cardio, and while that never hurt anybody, it does seem to be a waste of time when students could just be in class. It seems like the only solution to this problem is to increase the length of the break.

However, extending the ten minute break comes with its own set of problems. In order to account for a 20-25 minute break, the school day would need to be extended, which brings teacher contracts into discussion.

Westford Academy has one of the shortest school day lengths in the Dual County League, ending at 1:55 as opposed to the 2:00. Acton Boxboro however, begins at 7:23, and  ends at 2:18, which is 35 minutes longer than WA’s day.  Lincoln Sudbury starts at 7:50 and ends at 2:39, a day that lasts 20 minutes longer than WA’s. A common theme here is the later If the school day was to be extended to accommodate for this longer break, WA would need to renegotiate contracts with faculty members so that they are paid for the extra time that they spend working. Additionally, bus routes will need to be reorganized, as the middle schools still release at 1:55, but elementary schools release at 3:10 and 2:30. The extension may also change the practice schedule for sports, and club meetings would be pushed back as well.

Potentially the only benefit from the change is the increased time between class periods. While the change did not affected me much directly, I have noticed that people who were generally tardy to class with the regular schedule were able to come in on time to class. That actually does have an effect on student stress, because with the extra time, students were less rushed getting to class, and were able to spend more time focusing on their work towards the beginning of the block.

Despite being established to reduce student anxiety, the effect that the new schedule had was not significant enough to actually reduce the amount of stress students face. So what changes can be made that will have an impact, without bringing additional logistical problems into the mix?

One alternate solution would be to start the school day at a later time, say 8:30, which would diminish the need for renegotiating contracts, since teachers are working the same amount of time as before, just starting later in the day. According to a recent article from The Boston Globe, many school districts in Massachusetts, such as Newton, Natick, and Ashland, are considering this change for the 2016-2017 school year. Starting later in the day will also tackle the problem of student stress, as it allows for more time to sleep in the morning. Ideally, this would also tackle the problem of scheduling sports practices, games, and clubs, if every school system in the DCL notices how effective this later start time could be. Games could be pushed an hour later, and students would be well rested for their games as well, improving their academic performance.

Bottom line: the current change to the schedule is mostly ineffective, other than the five minutes between classes (and the absolutely delectable donuts). While there are potential changes that can be made to further improve the new schedule, they do not come without their own problems. It seems to me that the only way that student stress problems can be tackled without incurring additional problems is to push back the start of the school day until 8:30.

What do you think? Should we stick to the old schedule? Make changes to the trial? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!