New year, new schedule — for Upper School students. Students and teachers give their hot takes on how they think the new schedule has impacted the Upper School. For the past couple of years, Hackley’s Upper School schedule included a morning homeroom starting at 8:05, before first period. For the new 2023-2024 school year, homeroom in the morning has been removed, changing the first period start time to 8:10 and allowing students to arrive later to school. This change is currently influencing high school students’ daily routines and has affected the pace of their morning, either positively or negatively.
Freshman Owen Spencer had a lot to say about this topic. He said, “I personally like the new homeroom schedule because it helps to make sure that I’m on time to my first class.” He touched on the fact that the two periods prior can help with one’s attentiveness toward important announcements during homeroom, which is one of its pros. When asked if the change has made an impact on Owen’s performance in his first-period class, he said, “I don’t really think it has any influence on my first-period class but I do prefer it (homeroom) in the middle of the day”. When asked if Owen would change homeroom back to before the first period or keep it after the second period, he says that he “likes it the way it is”.
Junior Ava Maughan had a contradicting response.
She dislikes it because it means that she “has to be on time to first-period class and can’t sleep in.” Despite this fact, she explained that she would keep homeroom after the second period so that her homeroom teachers wouldn’t get upset with her if she was late to that period. She says that having homeroom after 2nd period is better for students’ overall well-being and that it keeps her organized throughout the day.
Mrs. Katherine Barnes is a Middle and Upper School Latin teacher as well as a Middle School advisor. While her 8th grade advisory still has homeroom before first period, for her, no homeroom in the Upper School means that 3 out of the 8 days in the cycle she has to miss Middle School homeroom to teach her Upper School classes. She “really values that time to get to know the kids (her homeroom)
and to be able to talk and download about what they are doing in their lives and their days”. For her, not having that time with her students is really “disjunctive”. She is not able to speak for Upper School advisors but says that there is “a lot of concern about kids coming late to their (first period) class.”
Mrs. Barnes believes that not having that homeroom block in the morning affects some Upper School students’ behavior in their first-period class because for them, “having that initial place to come in and be like ‘ugh I’m so tired’ and be able to vent in that way is really beneficial.” She thinks that because of this period, her Middle School students are able to go to their next class ready to work and focus.
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