The Agnes Irwin Schools’ 2025-2026 school year schedules have created a controversy among its students, and teachers. This schedule grants the students with less community time, advisory meetings twice per cycle, two back-to-back hour long blocks and a 40 minute flex time. The main reason why the schedules changed were due to the difference in the middle school and high school schedules. The faculty believes that changing the high school schedule to align with the middle school schedule will make office hours more useful than before. In comparison, the 2024-2025 school year already had assemblies going almost ten minutes over the given time, advisory three times per cycle, and only a singular hour block before flex. The main issue this schedule shift has been causing is the students inability to get their snack during community time, as there are some teachers who start their classes immediately. This causes many students to get to their second periods either late or famished, which is not useful if you want to focus in class. 

In an interview with an Agnes Irwin sophomore student, she stated her opinions on having less advisory time. The question, “Do you prefer that we have less advisory time this year?” was proposed, and she responded, “No, I wish that we had more advisory time. It is a place to get homework done, talk to your friends, and I really wish that was longer” said Risley. Many other students had a similar response, for they believe that advisory time is a great place to regroup and unwind. Yet these new schedules do not only affect downtime, they can also affect academic performance, especially if one has a test right after assembly. If you have a test or quiz after assembly and it runs late, then one may miss part of it and get less time. Yet, if a student comes in late, it can also affect your ability to focus as well. 

Various teachers may also see the issue with the new schedules, for it can possibly affect their classes. Despite being able to meet with both middle and school high students, the teacher’s lesson plan can get messed up. Teachers have to deal with the disruptions of students coming in late, stating, “Sorry I was at the SLC”. This shifts the overall mood of the entire classroom, which can be disruptive. Teachers also may design lesson plans that fit within the hour-long block, yet would not be able to get through all of it due to assembly or snack running late. This causes some classes to fall behind other sections, which creates a cycle of affecting both the students and the teachers. 

In my opinion, I believe that changing the schedules makes sense to align with the middle school, yet it does impact the students and teachers. We should be able to have advisory more often, and it would be possible if community time was a bit longer. Assemblies are more frequent due to the inability of having two speakers per community time, which gives everyone one less advisory per cycle. Not only do I miss having advisory, but I also believe that we should have only one hour long period each cycle, so we have ten minutes more of community time. That way we should get about five more minutes of assembly, and five more minutes of snack. This will allow us to take a breather in between classes, get snacks, and will result in a less rushed assembly.