Administration Listens and Takes Action
By Joseph Long ’22
The new distance learning schedule started off as a concept thought up by the Senior Class, After expressing frustration about the original distance learning schedule, seniors convinced the school’s administration to put it into practice with just a few tweaks.
The main complaints were that the previous schedule was inefficient and imbalanced, which also made for unnecessary screen time. Many students found that time between classes was not long enough to get really productive, but still long enough to be a waste of time. Some students could also end up having a really imbalanced week, such as having four classes one day and only one the next day. This problem was more widespread among seniors because they can have multiple classes of the same subject.
After exchanging grievances during their grade’s group chat, the seniors took it upon themselves to create a completely new schedule. They drafted it and posted it on Instagram, where it received a lot of positive feedback. Garnett Nelson ’20 even made a petition to change the schedule.
St. Christopher’s Student Council reached out to the St. Catherine’s Student Council, and then they worked together to meet with both schools’ administrations, which had been thinking about amending the schedule for some time, especially with exam review time coming up.
All of the progress culminated in a meeting between StC administrators and the Senior Class, and thereafter, the school adopted the seniors’ new schedule, modifying it only a little.
The main difference is the time between classes, which, like the previous schedule, was set as 15 minutes to allow more time for testing. Chas Steinbrugge ’20, Student Council president, said, “I am really happy that they listened to our feedback.”
The schedule we have been using the past two weeks allows for less overall screen time and an uninterrupted block of time at the end of the day to do work or for more club meetings. Tony Szymendera, head of Upper School, said that the new schedule is positive because it allows the school to have experience with two different methods of online learning, so if they ever have to do online learning in the future, they can do it more effectively.