Starting next school year, modified block scheduling will replace the current weeklong seven-period schedule. While this new schedule has been hailed as a means for fitting in more discussions about social and emotional topics, I view it as a step backwards from the current school week in several respects.

The new schedule penalizes advanced students. Whereas currently students can take classes at Kansas State University for school credit, the new block schedule would make it much more difficult for students to do this. Under the new schedule, students will meet for only their first three classes and an advisory period on Wednesday. This will place students who are taking Monday-Wednesday-Friday afternoon college courses in the dilemma of having to either skip classes at the high school or skip their college courses each Wednesday.

Students will find it harder to concentrate on Wednesday and Thursday. Research from Indiana University professors Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish has shown that students are best able to focus during the first twenty or so minutes of a lecture, after which point their ability to focus drastically decreases. This suggests that nearly doubling the length of class periods from 52 minutes to 95 minutes on Wednesday and Thursday will cut into the learning ability of all students, especially those who can hardly handle the current schedule. I know that it is difficult for me to concentrate during finals days at Manhattan High, during which each period is 87 minutes long. Imagine a 95-minute-period school day without an extended lunch period or lengthened passing periods! This brings me to my third point.

Open lunch will essentially disappear. The lunch period of each school day, blocked and regular, will be reduced to 35 minutes from the current length of 40 minutes. Most students currently have barely enough time to go to open lunch and return so it is likely that most students will be unable to go out next year without being tardy. As a result, it is probable that many students will either skip their next class period or drive recklessly so that they can return to school in time. Neither of these options is preferable to the current situation.

The new schedule is unnecessary. The purpose of the new schedule is to allow space for a 95 minute advisory period that will function roughly the same as Tribe Time. While the topics discussed will undoubtedly benefit some students, most students do not need an extended Tribe Time. I have not met a single student who thought Tribe Time was useful, and several of the people I have talked with acknowledged that their teachers did not follow the Tribe Time schedule. Why force all students to engage in an unwanted and unnecessary activity period each week, and why do so for more than an hour and a half?

While it is unlikely that anything can be done to reverse the recent decision to enact block scheduling for next year, it is a shame that an alternative and less adverse solution could not be reached. Why couldn’t Tribe Time have been extended by 14 minutes so that it lasted 34 minutes total? This would give enough additional time to Tribe Time to help the students who need it but would not have the regressive side effects of a modified block schedule. Each class period could have been shortened by only two minutes to account for those additional Tribe Time minutes. Unfortunately, such solutions will not be adopted. Though modified block scheduling was made with good intentions it will result in negative and unnecessary consequences. That is a pity.