As school recomences and students begin their classes, all will experience a new schedule far different than the previous year’s, which was adapted due to pandemic restrictions.

“We have preserved what many experienced as the ‘best thing’ about last year’s schedule,” Head of School Tony Farrell wrote in an email to the school on July 2. “Namely the focus that comes with fewer transitions during the school day and the preservation of instructional minutes.”

Last year, COVID-19 caused many scheduling complications, such as the San Francisco Department of Public Health imposing restrictions on open schools and many students choosing to study via Zoom rather than in-person. Because of this, the school had to make a change in the schedule, and they did by introducing a two class schedule where students take the same two classes for five weeks, switching to two more by the end of the rotation.

“I thought the old schedule was much better because we didn’t have as much homework because we only had two classes at a time,” sophomore Gavin Zeitz said. “Now that each class will meet multiple times per week, I’m expecting much more.”

The new schedule resembles schedules’ structures previous to the 2020-21 school year, allowing students to attend all of their classes on a rotating tri-daily basis where students have the same 2-3 classes on each given ‘block’ day, the three blocks being red, green and blue respectively.

“I preferred the block format that I had my freshman year and will have this year as opposed to the adapted COVID-19 schedule,” junior Iban Urruty said. “This year’s schedule will help with memorization and retention, especially in language and math classes.”

The new schedule decreases each period’s length from two and a half hours to one hour and fifty minutes in an effort to address complaints about excessively long classes.

“I got extremely tired during the long classes,” sophomore Gabe Sigal said. “The extra time was definitely a stretch, and having our classes shortened by 40 minutes is much better for my energy during class.” 

In addition to being more academically advantageous, students say that they feel the schedule changes create a better social environment on campus, students effectively able to see their entire class each day. 

“It has been really great to see everybody around campus,” senior Gregory Kosmowski said. “Both because of the schedule in addition to hybrid classes, I felt that our school community felt fragmented last year, something that will hopefully change with the new schedule.”

Despite recognising that the school’s pandemic-adapted schedule made the most of a bad situation, students say that they are excited to experience a more ‘normal’ school year as a result of schedule changes, for many the first such opportunity since they started highschool.

“There were pros and cons of last year’s two class schedules, but I’m excited to see what the new schedule has to offer.” sophomore Gavin Zeitz said.