The High School administration has announced a few schedule changes that will take effect in the beginning of August 2017. “The High School Leadership team has taken on many different points of feedback from teachers and students throughout the year as a commitment to refine the big changes that happened at the start of this year to our schedule,” says Andy Vaughn, the HS Dean of Students. As a result, the administration has the following changes to the schedule.

Among the changes to Panther Block, the administration has ended the eight-day rotation and has instead said that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will always be club meetings, while advisory will be limited to Thursday. Tuesdays will be reserved for assemblies, house, and class meetings. Due to accommodations that has to be made with the Middle School schedule, Panther Block will be flipped to the end of lunch on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Another change that concerns Panther Block will be how it is used for clubs.  The new schedule will see clubs meet only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with some clubs meeting every week, while other clubs will only meet every two weeks.  Ms. Hansberry in the HS Office is working hard to make this all a reality.

The second major change to the high school schedule is the adjustment of HL time. HL time will now be called “HL Flex Time.”  It will now be offered on every day (except Tuesdays), and will remain at the discretion of HL teachers to use as needed. HL time is ISB’s way of meeting the IB recommendations that HL courses have 240 contact hours over 2 years.  Our current schedule (without HL Flex Time) offers around 210.

There will also be slight adjustments made in class time for the convenience of teachers. For example, one change obviously made with sweeping student support is the extension of the morning class times from 80 to 85 minutes. While early release days will still remain in effect all other Tuesday’s will end at 2:25.

These schedule changes will take effect next year and will hopefully offer students and faculty well-managed time and an increase in class time.

Joshua Wright