Should We Shorten the Schedule?

The 10-period school day shapes every student’s experience at Stuyvesant. When a student can eat; when he or she can move to the next class; which electives a student can take, and how many—all of these are touched by the daily division of school life into 10 41-minute segments.

Proposals to replace the 10-period day with nine periods have been discussed during School Leadership Team meetings, and they’ve been gaining more traction over time. Their arguments are severalfold: for one thing, there is a widespread sentiment that students have abused the 10-period day; rather than add a free period to their schedule, students have filled all 10 of their periods up with classes—to their own mental detriment. While a 10-period schedule allows students to take more classes, it also means that each period is relatively meager in length, preventing many teachers from teaching their curriculum as thoroughly as possible. In Advanced Placement (AP) European History, for example, students who wish to learn additional content must stay for weekly after-school tutoring sessions, and content on the AP exam is taught until almost the day before the test, which also happens to be the makeup date. Furthermore, several AP Calculus BC teachers last year were unable to teach the entire curriculum prior to the test, forcing students to resort to time-consuming independent study. In general, many teachers have no choice but to gloss over content and shorten in-class discussions and activities otherwise essential to creating engaging, in-depth learning experiences, just to keep moving forward.

We endorse the nine-period day, but with major reservations. While a nine-period day would increase yearly instructional time by more than 15 hours per day, it would not be compatible with the Stuyvesant Diploma as it exists today. Under the current system, students fill the majority of their schedules with classes required to earn a Stuyvesant Diploma. Each term, students must take at least one extra class beyond New York State requirements: Music and Art Appreciation during freshman year, Introduction to Computer Science and drafting sophomore year, and a 5-Tech, 10-Tech, and two science electives throughout all four years. During freshman year, these requirements are not overly burdensome, since freshmen are often still left with one or two frees. However, while freshmen have more available periods, most electives are not accessible to them. On the other hand, upperclassmen have fewer free periods to take a wider range of electives, because the classes required by the Stuyvesant Diploma take priority. A student’s ability to take courses based on interest is a valuable part in developing passions; if there is already a limited number of periods to take interesting courses, implementing a nine-period day without remodeling the Stuyvesant Diploma would exacerbate the issue.

There are several courses of action that can be taken to help rectify this issue. One idea being considered by the administration is getting rid of the drafting requirement, and making the course a 5-Tech elective. While this would lead to a noticeable drop in the number of drafting students, drafting teachers would be able to maintain their positions since they are hired with the capability to teach other electives. Additionally, science electives are some of the most highly subscribed classes; however, many students take these courses not because they have a genuine interest in them, but because they need to fulfill the two science electives requirement. Students who truly want to take the class have a lesser chance of enrolling, since students who need the class solely to receive their Stuyvesant Diploma will take their spots. If students are not required to take classes that they are not interested in, this changes the learning environment into one where students are there to learn for the sake of learning—and not to simply check off a box.

It is clear that implementing a nine-period day will create conflicts because of the Stuyvesant Diploma. If the administration does plan on diminishing the number of periods, it should also consider lessening the number of required classes to accommodate the shift. The administration has already made changes to the roadmap students take throughout their high school career: for example, health, which was previously taught in junior year, is now being taught in freshman year. These changes are notable, but if Stuyvesant takes extra steps to further amend the requirements of the Stuyvesant Diploma, adopting the nine-period day will be much more realistic.