Students will notice several changes to their school day starting the 2023-2024 school year, the most noticeable is an extra 20 minutes of school.  Adding twenty minutes is something that will drastically change the school day. Good or bad, this time will be added to next year’s school days. The idea may sound surprising but it could be good for student education. Teachers already have to stay an extra 10 minutes this school year compared to previous years. There is a lot to think about when adding 20 minutes such as bus schedules, after-school activities, and class schedules. 

The proposed middle school day will start at 7:40 a.m. and end at 2:40 p.m. For grades 5 and 6 academic support will be the first period, and for 7 and 8-grade academic support will stay in the first period. This time will be used to support students with both their homework and academic instruction. This time can also be used as remediation for students who need extra help. Band, chorus, and extracurriculars will stay as scheduled. 

“It’s always good to add 20 minutes to student instruction, it always helps them,” Mrs. Tina Boyd, fifth grade English teacher, said. 

Some of the restructurings will take place during Rec Time, with more activities being available. For example, art projects for the school like murals, “lunch and learn” or Robotics. They are restructuring Rec Time in order to provide students with more opportunities. 

“Yeah, I think it’s a good thing. There’s some logistics we need to know,” Dr. Ryan Smith, former middle school principal, said. This means we don’t know for sure how the schedule may look, or exactly how the time will be used, but it is a very positive thing for the school.

“Students have more time with the staff and will relieve some students,” Smith said. 

The teacher contract states “The school day shall consist of a seven-hour and twenty-minute continuous period including a thirty-minute duty-free lunch period. Commencing the 2021-2022 school year, the workday shall increase to seven hours and thirty minutes. Commencing the 2023-2024 school year, the workday shall increase to seven hours and forty minutes. These increases to the workday will be used for student instruction.” They are slowly adding time to the school day and by next year the students’ school day would be longer than it is now. 

Despite being different from the current schedule, the extra twenty minutes will give more time for student activities and will change how the day is set up for the better.