Every morning when I get up for school, I have to stare into the darkness for a minute to prepare myself to wake up. I stumble to school like a zombie each morning, and struggle to keep my eyes open. I wake up at 6:00 every morning, and many Boise High students wake up even earlier. I speak for most students when I say that this is too early. Long nights due to sports, work, and other extracurricular activities on top of homework create hopeless situations for students that want to be on time. This problem is exacerbated by a brutal early wake up time that only robs students of their sleep even more.
The solution: A block schedule. A typical block schedule would have four periods in one day, followed by three different periods the next day. Each period would be 90 to 120 minutes long, with a lunch break around 40 minutes long. A block schedule like this achieves two major goals: It allows for school to start later, and minimizes the amount of work students have to do at home.
With some days having three periods and others having four, it leaves time open on the days with less periods. For example, on a day where you might have four 90 minute periods along with lunch, you spend six hours and forty minutes at school. However, the next day, you only have three periods, making the length of that day five hours and ten minutes. There are many approaches to filling that extra time that could be taken by a school, one of which is starting later. Even if a school does not want to start later, they could allow for study halls, or office hours to talk to teachers, reducing homework time outside of class and allowing students to get to bed earlier.
The reduction of time spent doing homework and projects outside of class is also another great positive of the block schedule. As I have discussed, extra time could be turned into office hours or study halls to reduce homework. However, the block schedule already reduces the amount of homework students need to complete. Each day after school, students only need to worry about completing homework for three or four of their classes, rather than all seven. In addition, students would have two nights to finish their homework, further reducing their time spent on homework.
Overall, the block schedule would allow for students to wake up later for school and have less homework each night. This would greatly improve student health and wellbeing, and make the stress of highschool feel like a little less of a burden.
