Your alarm blares, you look outside your window, and you think you’ve made a mistake: it must be 3:00 a.m, why else would it be this dark? You check the time. It’s actually 6:00 a.m., and you are suddenly faced with the reality that it’s time to wake up and get to school. Tired and agitated, you rush out of bed and get ready for the day as quickly as possible, knowing your time is limited before you must rush out the door. While this pressure has been present every school year, this year in particular, students feel that the amount of time they have in the morning has drastically decreased. This is due to the new Hackley start time: 8:05 a.m. instead of 8:10 a.m.
This year, Hackley made the executive decision to move the start time of first-period class back five minutes. While this change may seem minor from an outsider’s perspective, many students feel it has made a big difference in their morning routines and negatively affects their start to the day. It’s understandable that students are upset about having to get up earlier, but many seem to be unaware of the reason for this change. This may be because the school hasn’t yet been able to fully implement its plan for Community Time.
Upper School Assistant Director Chris Arnold said that the schedule change was made for one main reason: so that students and teachers could have additional community time due to the addition of the Center for the Creative Arts and Technology.
“We wanted to open up more time for community time. Since we have the new center opening and we are going to have the opportunity to do all school meetings there on Friday, we want to make sure that this time will be filled and productive,” said Mr. Arnold.
Despite the good intentions, many students are unhappy with the time change. It sets back the morning for many, causing students to have to leave their houses at a much earlier time. This is mainly due to the traffic on Benedict Avenue, which appears to have increased dramatically since the start time has changed.
“I live in the city, so getting to school already takes a while, but the new start time has made me have to leave for school even earlier in order to beat the traffic,” said senior Frances Clifford.
Surprisingly, though, the time change has not negatively affected attendance statistics this year. According to Mr. Arnold, this year’s on-time attendance rates have not decreased compared to last year. Unexpectedly, they are actually higher.
“Interestingly enough, for the first week and a half to two weeks, there was an uptick of students coming in late. Since then, though, the amount of late students has been less than last year. While there aren’t exact statistics, this is a general impression in terms of the number of lunch detentions I have been giving,” said Mr. Arnold.
While the statistics show that more students are on time this year, it doesn’t change the fact that students are still upset with the change and that they must shift their morning routines to accommodate it.
Some students feel that the time change is unnecessary because community time is already long enough—30 minutes. Changing the entire course of the day to only get an additional five minutes of community time seems dispensable to many, especially because many students feel that on most days the full 30 minutes is not used.
“I think that all the change did was add an extra five minutes to community time, but in my opinion, that isn’t useful since usually we don’t use the entire 30 minutes in the first place. I don’t think the change is awful, but I don’t think it’s necessary either,” said junior Ethan Deng.
Students also dislike this change because they feel it hinders their academic performance as they are more tired in the morning due to waking up earlier for school.
“I feel like the change has made me have to leave earlier in the morning which has made me much more tired. Then, when I have big assessments first period like a test or an essay, it is much harder to focus because I am already extra tired,” said senior Isabella Barriera.
While the time change may not have a noticeable effect on attendance, many students feel they have to leave for school earlier as a result and that the change is not necessary as community time is already shorter than 30 minutes. The effects are meant to be positive and provide more time to strengthen our community, however, many students believe the cons outweigh the benefits.
Although this change has upset Hackley students, it is also important that we learn to live with it and adjust accordingly. We cannot change the entire schedule, and in the grand scheme of things, five minutes really should not make much of a difference in school arrival times. Instead, we should try to have a positive outlook on the change and think about the benefit: more community time throughout the day.
Additionally, the school year has only just begun, so it is important that we give ourselves time to adjust to the new schedule change. Another important factor to consider is that the Center for Creative Arts and Technology is extremely new, so we haven’t experienced the schedule change with the new building for that long. Maybe once time passes by, students will see that the additional five minutes is actually a necessity. Only time will tell.
Everything takes time, so it is likely that as the year progresses, students will get more and more used to the change and adjust their morning routines accordingly. Hopefully eventually, the change will no longer be bothersome.
