Normal high schools follow similar schedules: having all their classes in a day, but not CHS. CHS employs a block schedule which is unique in the school district. Based on answers from a couple of students, they seem to like it more than the norm.
Based on the few people that have been interviewed at CHS they seem to enjoy the special block schedule that Community has compared to the normal high school schedule. Among these students, Sophie Banta, Sylvia Ellis and Annie Zheng all enjoy the block schedule at Community.
Zheng is a student who split enrolls with CHS as her home school and Pioneer as another school for different topics to study. Zheng enjoys the block schedule because she can get into the topics and get involved with the people in the class.
“I think the block schedule, I think it’s a lot of fun. You have a lot more time to get into the class and the mindset of the class,” Zheng said.
At the same time, Community High School also has a regular schedule on Fridays where you have either six or seven classes, however, her opinion on this schedule is a little different.
“I think it’s fine. The only thing that’s hard is during lunch, I take the bus to Pioneer but because of the schedule on Fridays, the lunch is pushed back and I actually don’t have time for lunch,” Zheng said.
Because of having all of the classes on one day and having the lunchtime set to later, she doesn’t even get to eat lunch, one of the most important meals of the day.
Banta is a student who solely goes to Community. Banta loves that block schedule; she feels that it gives the students a try at many different opportunities like time to explore the open campus, time to get their work done and time to see all the small businesses in Kerrytown where Community is located. Banta also mentioned that because there is extra time in the classes, it gives the teachers more time to approach different ways of teaching that work for all of the students.
“You can also take college classes at the University of Michigan because of their campus being so close,” Banta said.
Although Community does not offer any AP classes, you can take college classes at the University of Michigan, which is only a short walk away making it very convenient to get to, and taking these college classes can help your education and is a good experience to add to a college resume.
Ellis, another student who had been interviewed also enjoys the block schedule because of all the extra learning time and thinks it is very beneficial for students who may need some extra help or time to learn a topic.
“I feel like that’s beneficial for people that might need more help with understanding a concept,” Ellis said.
Ellis also enjoyed the longer classes because it gave you more time to get your work done and not have to worry about homework, gave more time to hang out with friends and time to relax after school.
“We have more time to work well in class, so you can have less homework. So you can have a lot more free time after school, like hanging out with friends,” Ellis said.
However, Ellis’s opinion of the Friday schedule is a little different.
“I feel like it is a long day. It’s just you have every class and then you basically, just you’re there for longer than normal, like 40 minutes or something, but it feels like forever,” Ellis said. “I also think switching between classes a lot makes the day feel so much longer. Where with the block schedule, it just feels like a much shorter day. Because you have three or four classes instead of six or seven so it just feels better.”
On a Friday schedule, you have either six or seven classes and it overall feels very long and tiring especially if you have sports or extracurricular activities after school, and you don’t have time to get work done during your class so you have to do it at home making the day very long for students.
Overall, students seem to like the block schedule over a regular high school schedule, the block schedule, with helping students conserve their energy and not burning them out too early in the school year.
