Since Covid-19 began, Blake has had countless new schedules to try and accommodate both students’ and teachers’ needs. With the countless changes of schedules, it was no surprise that this year brought another new schedule. Some of the largest changes were that all classes met for 70 minutes and Monday and Friday no longer had all 7 blocks meeting. These new changes were all decided by a committee, spearheaded by Joe Ruggerio.

When trying to tackle problems the old schedules had, committee member Paul Menge had this to say, “There were somethings we couldn’t change… we still needed 7 blocks. We still needed to operate on a 5 day schedule…” Another big factor that he talks about is the stress levels of students and how the schedule could affect that. He says, “Is it really important that all 7 classes meet on one day? And the answer was no, it’s really not. We learned that last year… one of the reasons we changed [from 7 classes on one day] was because that really put an onus on students.  Like Thursday night, you’ve got five or six things due the next day and that’s stressful. We wanted to alleviate that.” And with the introduction of the new schedule these goals have been achieved. Students no longer have to worry about Thursday or Sunday nights and the committee has made a schedule that is balanced enough when school is 5 days or less. Menge also describes trying to make the new schedule like putting together a puzzle. If some pieces have to go here then others have to move to try and make everything fit. One of the pieces that had to move to fit the requirements Menge mentioned above was the length of classes. The classes became longer and more uniform in order for Fridays and Mondays to become less stressful.

Another goal that Menge mentioned was having a later start time and ending earlier and the committee believed that by having these longer class periods, those goals could be achieved.