Hackley students are no strangers to schedule changes. Last year, the schedule was changed from seven to eight days, and longer one-hour periods were implemented. This year, the schedule has been further tweaked, making it possible for one more period in the Middle School, as well as making it easier for teachers who teach in both the Middle and Upper School to transition from one division to the other.
Homeroom now meets for twenty minutes after second period, instead of for ten minutes at the beginning of the school day. “Senior Sleep-In” is no longer a privilege only for seniors, as anyone who has first period or both first and second periods free is permitted to arrive late with their parent’s permission. Assistant Director of the Upper School Chris Arnold emphasizes that his expectation is for everyone to arrive promptly at 8:10 when school starts. However, if someone’s guardian has given them permission to be late, they do not have to be at school until 10:20 a.m. when homeroom starts.
This 10:20 to 10:40 period is also being used for office hours, grade meetings, and advisory, making homeroom no longer a daily occurrence. The late policy, especially for first and second periods, has become much stricter compared to last school year. If a student is late to class, they will receive a lunch detention later that day. If they have been late to class four times in the span of two eight-day cycles, they will receive a Saturday detention.
Mr. Arnold said this policy is in place to stress being on time for first and second period, now that attendance cannot be taken in homeroom. However, students can still receive detention if they are late to class later in the day. He emphasized that students have been working well with this change, arriving to class on time.
“I think as far as working with the changes, for class time, it has had a minimal impact on the Upper School schedule,” Mr. Arnold said. “I’m sure students are bothered by having to be here at 8:10, but they had to be here at 8:10 last year. The start time hasn’t changed, it’s just that it’s for a class rather than homeroom, so there’s a little bit more pressure there.”
Although the new schedule has been working very well, it is not perfect. “I think the challenge is always trying to find – we’ve got community time [which] is great for advisory and grade contact – in an ideal world we’d magically find some time to be able to have longer assemblies which we will have this year,” said Mr. Arnold. In these cases, the Upper School will run on an altered schedule, which can sometimes disrupt the natural flow of the schedule.
While the administrators made this change mainly to benefit the Middle School and teachers of both divisions, students have varying opinions on the schedule change. Some are happy with the homeroom change, while others deem the change unnecessary.
Junior Jack Magidson is happy with the moved homeroom and office hours time, saying, “We weren’t using the time in the morning previously very usefully, and it felt kind of unnecessary. [Not having a homeroom every day] is fine. It gives me more free time to focus on my work.” Jack also likes the idea of being able to come in late during first period.
“As a student, you could always use more sleep,” he said.
Sophomore Ben Iaderosa has mixed feelings about the homeroom change.
“I don’t really know how I feel about it, because there’s some positives. It’s less frequent and shorter,” he said, “In the morning, I prefer it last year, because you could miss out on homeroom. It wasn’t super important. But now, if you’re late, you’re late for class.”
Senior Phoebe Abrahms thinks the change is unnecessary and prefers having homeroom in the morning.
“I don’t quite understand the point of it. Homeroom has always felt a little unproductive, but I do think it was a nice way to start the day. It’s weird to have it but it to not be the thing that starts the day.”
While as a senior, this is her first year to enjoy sleep-in privileges, she does not feel strongly about the privilege no longer being exclusive to seniors. “It is a little annoying that [senior sleep in] is a senior privilege that is no longer a privilege, but I also don’t have incredibly strong opinions about it,” she said.
Phoebe also expressed her thoughts on the new late policy, saying, “I understand why they want people to get to class on time, but I do think it will be frustrating if I’m in a situation where I run into traffic and I’m late, and I wind up getting detention. I also think the Saturday detentions is where it gets to be a lot.”
Junior Ava Derby also has mixed thoughts on the new late policy.
“It incentivizes people to be more on time, but at the same time, the other side of that is that people would be so worried about being late that it could cause unsafe driving. People [would be] doing anything to kill themselves to get to class on time, she said.”
If Ava got to school late because of traffic, she would try to talk to Mr. Arnold, since she cannot control it. However, she doesn’t feel like this might always work in her favor, and that she might get told she should have left earlier.
From Mr. Arnold’s perspective, he has been pretty lenient with the detentions so far. “I’ve been, I think, pretty understanding with that. If a student says, ‘hey my commute was thrown off by something unusual this morning,’ I’ve said, you know, okay, just remember if it’s heavily raining, you should probably plan that it’s going to take a little more time to get to school.” However, if a student continues to be late, he might not give the student a break the next time.
