As the summer ends, students start to worry about school and their upcoming schedules, and a major change occurs. A new school schedule is put into place and takes the end of the day advisory to after first block. This means that fourth block has become the last block of the day. Making this change in the schedule has caused a various amount of problems for students, especially athletes.

Having advisory at the end of day may not have always been the most productive time for students, but for the ones who wanted and needed to get the homework done in school rather than working on it at home, advisory was perfect. Advisory at the end of the day, if effectively used, could make it so my night consisted of no homework.

As I have experienced, being a soccer and basketball player for the high school team, leaving early for games happens once, if not twice a week.

The advantage to having advisory at the end of the day for an athlete like myself, was that instead of missing a class that I would learn in, I would only miss advisory which I would have the opportunity to work on homework. Leaving me to do my homework at home or on the bus ride. If I had the option to miss a homework class or miss a much needed core or elective class, I would chose missing a homework class every time.

Now, with the advisory after first block, I am left to do my homework from first block only. I then have the three remaining blocks homework to do later that night.

This was not the correct decision, in my eyes, to change advisory from after fourth to after first. I need advisory at the end of the day; this will help me not to worry about missing important material in class, and get all of my homework for the day.

This semester we should try out this new bell schedule, to see if advisory is effectively used and is more useful now than it was last year. If the answer turns out to be no, and we find out that advisory now is actually less effective than it ever was, then I believe that going back to the old schedule and helping the student will be more effective. The administration, again, has made a decision without the consent of the student. Administration, hear our voices and input before making such decisions that change our high school experiences.

By Glenn Shoptaugh