January 22, 2019
By Athena Li and Ilana Rosker
As the first semester of the 2018-2019 school year closes, students and parents of the Lexington High School community face new schedule plans which affect the high school’s block schedule.
On Dec. 4, 2018, the School Committee approved the later start times, but chose to implement them for the 2020-2021 school year, rather than the 2019-2020 school year.
Three proposed plans for the new schedule format were split into color-coded options: red, blue and green. The names derive from length; red, with the fewest letters, has the shortest blocks, followed by blue and green.
The red option has classes meet four out of six times a week for 55-65 minute durations with five or six classes per day.
The blue option has each class meet three times per week, with classes lasting 60-70 minutes, and four or five classes per day. There would be one 50 minute I Block, one 45 minute I Block, and one 25 minute I Block. The blue option also maintains the current five day cycle, in which the first day is always Monday.
Finally, the green option includes 75-85 minute blocks, creating a day composed of only four classes. It is formatted in a eight day cycle, with four different types of days, each repeating twice in a single cycle. There would be four 45 minute I Blocks in a cycle, as well as two ten-minute breaks in the morning per cycle.
“I dislike [the green option] because I am absolutely positive that I cannot sit in a class for that long,” Thierno Barry, a freshman, said.
Luckily for Barry, Principal Stephens, after analyzing several surveys of teachers', students' and parents' opinions, decided to go with the red option, most similar to the school's current schedule.
"75-80% of students wanted either the current schedule or the red option... The schedule will also be reassessed in two to three years," Mrs. Spalding, a world history teacher at LHS, said.
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