At the start of the second semester, new advisory and schedule changes were put into action. The homeroom lesson schedule was changed as well as the bell schedule.

These changes were made due to feedback that the administration got at the end of the first semester. Along with asking how safe students feel at school to ask questions and try new things, the school wanted to know how the students felt about their advisory, lunch and passing times. “I like that the administration listened to our voices and made the students feel heard,” junior Shelby Parsons said.

The results were that students were unhappy with the number of lessons that were given during advisory, lunch was too short, and consequently, they thought some passing time could be given up to account for this. “On one hand I liked the longer lunch, but on the other hand I liked longer passing times but overall I like the longer lunch better,” junior Brooke Pitt said.

Part of this discontent with the amount of time in lunch and passing times could stem from the hour-long lunch and 10-minute period between classes last year in online school during Covid. Students are still refamiliarizing themselves with shorter times but ultimately were unsatisfied with the original in-person plan.

In response to this feedback, the school adopted new advisory lesson days. Instead of having lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it was changed to only Wednesdays. Additionally, the passing times were shortened from six to five minutes in between classes. This made it so that there was a longer lunch by seven minutes.

Due to these changes, the ending and starting times of all of the classes are now different. After an entire semester of familiar bell times, it may take a while to get used to the new ones. “I enjoy how lunch is longer and I have more time to eat and hang out with friends but now because the time between classes is shorter I have to pick up the pace,” junior Alina Salim said.

Students wanted a longer lunch and less advisory periods with lessons for multiple reasons. It comes down to wanting more time to work and rest in between morning and afternoon classes. “I am happy with a longer lunch because I can go and see a teacher if I need to and still have time to eat,” Parsons said.

Students are responding well to these changes, after all, they are the ones who requested them to be put into place. “I really like that lessons are only once a week now because I have more time to do my work in homeroom,” Parsons said.

Teachers are also in favor of this change. “I think that it is a good change to provide students with extra time for their mental health and well-being and it gives them time to socialize and take a short break from academics,” Spanish teacher James Fetterman said.