For the second time in three years, students and teachers alike must adjust to a change on campus. The new schedule, which will go into effect for the 2025-2026 school year, eliminates anchor days and becomes a full-block schedule.
In October 2024, a poll was sent out to gauge teacher opinions on adopting a new bell schedule. The results of the poll showed that 57.8 percent were in favor of the change, while 42.2 percent preferred to keep the current schedule. Later, in December 2024, another poll was sent out for teachers to vote whether or not they wanted to adopt a full block schedule similar to Newbury Park High School, but with office hours and CPT time in the mornings. The proposed schedule required 80 percent teachers’ approval and 82.5 percent approved adopting the new schedule.
“There are two things that our current bell schedule presents problems with,” Principal Eric Bergmann said. “Number one, it doesn’t allow for much in the way of meeting time and collaboration time for our teachers. Second, and probably more importantly, is that we have been working very, very hard to try to figure out a way to build time into the structure of the day for kids to get extra help and support from any teacher.”
Instead of having students come before school, after school or during lunch, the new schedule will have built-in “office hours” every Thursday for students to get help and support.
Another motivating factor for the proposal was the ineffectiveness of anchor days. With 45 minutes during anchor day class periods and the number of Mondays with no school, anchor days have proven pointless.
“I think a lot of teachers were beginning to realize that maybe anchor days aren’t so great.” Bergmann said. “We looked at the Newbury Park schedule beginning last spring, and we liked the ideas and concepts behind it. So [the teacher-led committee] made some adjustments, and that’s really what led to our current bell schedule.”
Bergmann hopes that the schedule change will be beneficial to both students and teachers, while increasing productivity.
