My name is Oliver I'm a 7th grader at Crittenden Middle School and yesterday (3/20/24) our Vice Principal came into leadership during 5th period and informed us about the school board's proposal to change our school schedule. Instead of having 8 periods, we would have 7 with an added advisory period as seen here:

 

 

 

 

 

The ADV or advisory period would be used for SEL (Social-emotional learning) where the counselor would come into our 1st-period classrooms about once a week on Thursdays.

To add in this ADV period the proposed schedule would cut down on the number of electives that students can have from 3 to 2.

This is unfair to kids with instructional support because the number of electives they can have would be reduced to 1. 

  Another thing this proposed schedule would add is block periods. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, we would have 4 periods that are 85 minutes each.

85 minutes is 1 hour and 25 minutes give or take. 85 minutes is too long for a class period and students will get overworked from these long periods of time.

Not to mention that this schedule would be harder for the current 7th graders and 6th graders to learn and make the incoming 6th graders' transition to middle school more difficult.  

This schedule doesn't just affect students. The result of having longer periods would put more stress on teachers to plan longer or more lessons for one period. 85-minute PE periods could be dangerous for kids with disabilities and respiratory issues because of the physical strain PE puts on students.  

If we cannot keep our current schedule, we would like to have the chance to propose a new schedule created by the students themselves at the very least.

Thank you for reading this and please help us keep our schedule.