How Do Pentucket Students and Staff Feel About The New Waterfall Schedule?

(Photo Source: PEXELS)

(Photo Source: PEXELS)

Trevor Cloutier, Writer

Going into a new school can be a lot for most students, but adding a whole new schedule format on top will make some students stress out. Being at a new and improved school, all students at Pentucket will agree that it is great, but do the students here like or dislike the new waterfall schedule? 

The new schedule is very different from any school schedule that students here at Pentucket have ever seen before. There are a lot of mixed emotions and controversy about the new hour-long classes and their rotating start time. We have been using this schedule for a couple of weeks now and students and staff should have a good opinion on whether they like it or not. 

I have started researching whether or not longer classes help students learn more efficiently, and going through the different articles I have seen that there are many different opinions regarding the waterfall schedule. It seems that teachers like that they have more time to teach the class since it allows for more lessons to fit in, but students sometimes seem to have a hard time paying attention to the lesson for that long. This can also be flipped for students where the other half of them have said that they actually like the longer classes because they feel like the teachers are able to go more in-depth and not rush the lessons that they have planned for the class that day. 

In my Journalism class, I did a survey asking many different yes or no questions just to get a feel for how people felt about the schedule, and to my surprise, I got a lot of fifty-fifty answers. People who took this survey seemed to like the new schedule more but they don’t like the longer classes.

(Photo Source: PEXELS)

Getting the thoughts of other students was necessary so that I could truly see how people viewed the new schedule. I first talked with my junior classmate Colin Rafferty, who when I asked him his thoughts on the new schedule said, “When I first heard that the school was changing the whole schedule around I didn’t think I would like it because it was going to make things more difficult for students. But after doing it for a couple of weeks I have started to like it and how it is formatted with the switching class periods.”

I then wanted to see how he felt about the classes now being an hour long and he responded by saying, “I honestly do not mind the longer class times. I can sometimes get bored but I feel like I am not rushed to get my work done super fast.” 

Staying with the topic of students’ views, I have also gotten some negative reviews about this whole waterfall schedule. One of these negative reviews came from another classmate of mine, Jack Foley, a junior at Pentucket.  When I asked Foley about having six classes a day, he said, “I feel like when we miss a class I am behind and it can make it hard to always remember what we have been working on. Also, the classes are longer now that we only have six and I hate being in my boring classes for a long time.”

(Photo Source: PEXELS)

The thoughts on the schedule from the student’s point of view are very mixed, with some of them enjoying it and others hating it. There is one more opinion that I had to find out about and that would have to be the teachers. I wanted to ask Mr. Casey his thoughts on this new change and he had a lot of interesting things to say. The first question just asked for his thoughts on the whole schedule and he said, “I like how the classes are longer the only thing that can be difficult as a teacher is prepping for classes.”

Mr. Casey then elaborated on this topic by saying his favorite thing about the new schedule, “My favorite thing is definitely the hour-long classes because it gives the kids time to get their work done and I can fit more into a lesson. Also, this makes it good for the kids because now they will get less homework because they can get it all done in class.” 

The new schedule is going to be with us Pentucket students for a while and it is important to get a lot of different opinions on it. Talking with students and teachers gave me a good view of the pros and cons of this new schedule. This is a very controversial topic within the school for many students and teachers and it should be talked about more as it is the main part of Pentucket students’ and staff’s everyday school life.