Late into the 2020-2021 school year, Abington School District announced their decision to switch to a block schedule beginning in the 2022-23 school year. Abington schools have been following the traditional, 8-day period bell schedule for our entire time as students, so finding out that the school would operate on a block schedule surprised me. This change has garnered a variety of reactions from students and staff, ranging from annoyance over longer periods to joy over having more class time to dive deeper into particular subjects. The mixed feelings about the new schedule raise the question: is the traditional 8-period schedule or the block schedule better?

The drawbacks of a block schedule are as clear as day. Paying attention in class to just one subject for such an elongated time will be much more difficult for many people since students will be exposed to four long 80-minute-long periods every day. The previous school year showcased the problems with this type of schedule as we also had 80 minute periods during the hybrid schedule. When I returned to school last year, zoning out and almost falling asleep in my classes because of their excruciating length became a daily habit, especially in my chemistry class. Keeping up with the material in a challenging class at 7:35 AM is already hard with the traditional schedule; imagine doing that for almost double the amount of time. To amplify this, having a weekly double-science period would last 160 minutes, meaning that students will have to sit in class without breaks for almost three hours. Speaking from experience, I had Chemistry and AP Biology back to back last year; once a week, my school day consisted of having both double periods in one day. I am scared by the prospect that I might fall victim to the same absolute boredom and pain experienced during those six hours of continuous, intense learning. 

While there are several downsides to operating on a block schedule, there are also many underlying benefits to the switch. The arguably most prominent advantage to the new schedule is that there will be extended free time for competitive students who like to load up on hard classes each year. Many of these students are willing to sacrifice their free periods so that they can take as many challenging classes as possible. This forces students to multitask eating lunch during a class and note-taking or skip eating a meal altogether. However, the new schedule will have a regular lunch period in the middle of the day for everyone. With this new built-in lunch period, students will have a much healthier schedule because of this period to relax and eat lunch. Every student will be able to add one more class to their schedule than they could have added with the old schedule. This will allow students to explore their interests and challenge themselves without feeling overwhelmed. Additionally, class periods sometimes feel too short, which causes happiness or frustration depending on the class. Elongated class time will be helpful for particularly difficult subjects, such as Physics or Calculus. More class time will allow students to receive more help from teachers, as well as interact more with one another. 

All in all, I believe that your feelings about the block schedule depend on your personal preferences. Coming from someone who plans on taking many challenging courses and other career elective classes, the block schedule will allow me to get the best of both worlds; I’ll be able to undertake as many classes as I can while allowing for free time in between. Next school year, the sudden change from the 8-period to block schedule will be a tough adjustment for everyone, but we will all (hopefully) get through it.