Why?

This is the question being asked about the new static schedule.

High school principal, Mr. Seymour, said that there were many reasons for this change. “We realized that, in order to accomplish the things that we needed to accomplish, we needed to have a more productive schedule. We needed to be in sync with the middle school,” said Seymour. This schedule now allows the high school and middle school to more effectively share staff members and expand opportunities for high schoolers, including work studies and internships.

Students across Pentucket all have opinions when it comes to the non-rotating schedule. When asked how he felt about it, junior, John Reinhold, said, “Dude, honestly, I kind of like it.” Having absolutely no problem with the schedule puts him in a very small margin of the student population.

More students have less positive outlooks regarding the schedule than Reinhold. “It gets boring because you’re doing the same thing everyday,” claims sophomore, Amelia Luke, as the students around her nodded their heads in agreement. “If you have a class you hate at the beginning or end of the day, you’re screwed.”

Taking a middle ground perspective, Amber Demers, junior, said, “I like it because you don’t have to remember what day it is, and I don’t like it because I don’t like having the same class at the same time everyday.”

Although having the same classes at the same time everyday gets boring, it eliminates the confusion of having to figure out what day it is. “At first, I thought I wasn’t going to like it; now I realized it’s less confusing. One less thing to worry about- though I am sad about ten minute break,” said junior class president, Tori Soucy.

Many students reported finding themselves paying attention less and less as the day goes on. This, they say, is mainly due to not having ten minute break, as it offered a time to pull themselves together mentally. “The loss of ten-minute break is a tragedy because having a break in between classes was what kept me sane, and now I spend more time in the hallway between classes, which probably isn’t a good thing,” said junior Molly Rollins.

The loss of the beloved ten-minute break has many more people than just Molly and Tori in distress. “The death of ten-minute break was a knife through the heart of the school,” said junior, Garrett Lischke. “The time from ten minute break has lengthened classes to compensate for stupid people.”

In reality, ten minute break is not gone in order for Pentucket to “compensate for stupid people.” Rather, it is gone because the middle school does not have anything like it, and in order to be in sync, the high school had to get rid of it. Classes used to be 49 minutes long, and now they are 50- which wouldn’t be enough time to “compensate for stupid people” anyways.

Even teachers have an opinion on losing this free time. “I have heard more teachers complain about ten-minute break than students. It was a time for them to revise their lesson plans if they weren’t going well for the first couple classes. I also have noticed a lack of energy in my first period class, but it is a different story for my seventh period class,” said Mr. Hardy, a history teacher at Pentucket.

When asking Mr. Seymour if ten minute break was ever going to come back, he said, “I don’t really know if we are ever going to bring it back. If we did, it would be a challenge.”

In addition to the loss of ten-minute break, having the same lunch everyday is another unpopular side effect of the new schedule. Simply put, and speaking on the behalf of many students, “Having the same lunch everyday is sucky,” said junior Allison Carr.

For many students who don’t have friends in their lunches, this can be a detrimental loss. “Non-rotating lunches have been a huge impact for me because I don’t get to see my friends,” said sophomore Amelia Luke.

Static lunches and no ten minute break result in a loss of sociability at school. The non-changing schedule has many different feelings attached to it.