We hope to open a dialogue with the administration, to let the students have input on the schedule. We would like to try to solve our major issues with the current plan while still accomplishing the goals of the schedule (reducing stress and improving education). 

Irvington High School is planning to implement a new hybrid block-drop schedule next year and require that we all eat lunch at the same time. This new schedule greatly concerns myself, my compatriots, and some of my teachers in three major ways, as listed in order of importance.

Electives

In this schedule, students lose an elective. This means students are limited in their ability to explore their interests and be individual. 14 year olds will have to choose their educational path right from the start as only one elective is available for 9th graders because of the NY requirement to take health.

Taking away electives also means some of our electives will simply cease to exist as no one will be able to choose them over classes they see as essential. Some of the classes which may be in danger are:

Latin, Greek, Graphic Design, Photography, Women’s studies, Astronomy, Philosophy, Civil Engineering

and many others. Taking away these electives weaken our school and our students. Why get rid of the classes that expand our knowledge and we actually look forward to?

Focus/Test Scores

We know that our generation is technology focused. And we understand we have some trouble with our attention span. So, why would extending the amount of time we have to learn per class help? Many students already struggle to concentrate well the entirety of the current period. Fewer, longer periods mean most people learn less, as the learning capability of a student in two 40 minute periods is much greater than a student in one 80 minute period. Creating 77 minute periods would greatly disadvantage us.

Lunch

One of the things this schedule does is create one lunch period for all four of our high school grades. This means that around 600 people would be having lunch at one time (plus likely one middle school grade), devastating our ability to buy lunch (from the cafeteria or takeout), as well as simply fit in the cafeteria with a carrying capacity of around 340 people. It also destroys our ability to get one-on-one instruction, spend time with people we’d never normally talk to, and serve as a TA - an important avenue for educational experience and community service.