There have been many new schedule changes made in schools all over the Troy School District. One new change includes adding early release days. This new addition will be replacing the late start days schools had last year. Do not be mistaken; these early release days are not like regular half days. On typical half days, school would end around three hours earlier and there would not be an allotted time for lunch during the school day. In contrast, early release days end an hour and a half earlier and have a designated time for lunch.
The reason why the Troy School District has early releases or late start days is primarily due to teachers having meetings with staff and administrators in the district. These meetings consist of staff development and other issues among administrators. Teachers and staff have specific meeting times that take up hours of the day.
On early release days, classes start at the regular school start time. However, dismissal is at 12:40 p.m. with each class being 39 minutes long. The unusual part of the schedule is that students will have time for lunch during fourth hour. This causes lunch to start at 9:30 a.m. These changes have sparked many mixed opinions among students and staff.
Umaima Baseer, a junior at Troy High School, expressed her opinion on how lunches on early release days are unnecessary and way too early. “A lunch starting at 9:30 in the morning is crazy. Having lunch at fifth hour would at least be a little more towards lunch time, not breakfast time. There seems to be no point in bringing lunch if you are going to eat it right in the morning.”
Sydney Barosko, a science teacher at Troy High School, explains why lunches are served on early release days. She explains that the reason the district must have lunches on early release days is to meet mandatory time requirements from the state. Due to this, the district is unable to have half days on these designated days.
“From my understanding, the reason we are serving lunch now is to have it count as a school day and that we are running into some issues in time at some schools on giving enough instructional time to meet the requirements of the state.”
After seeing these new changes, students and staff have many different opinions. Some prefer early releases and some prefer having late start days. One of the reasons some students prefer late start days is due to school starting later, allowing students to get a bit more rest in the morning.
Senior Samridhi Sharma states the reasons she likes late start days more than early releases. “I prefer late start days because I like waking up in the morning and seeing sunlight outside, feeling more fresh. I also liked how classes switched around on late start days.”
However, many students have different opinions on late start days and prefer having early releases. Nisha Hari, a junior at Troy High School, explains her opinion and reasons why early release days are better than late start days. “Early release days are generally better than late start days. The day feels shorter and classes feel shorter compared to late start days, where the day feels pretty long because most of our classes are after eight.” Generally, students are having back and forth arguments on whether the district should have kept late start days or that the new early releases were a better idea.
Some teachers argue that late starts were harder for teachers due to them having to teach a full day after having morning meetings. Having early release days will make it easier for teachers having to balance meetings and teaching students during the day. Barosko explains why she prefers late early releases primarily based on the professional development viewpoint.
“Late starts were harder than early releases because during late starts we still had the full day coming up and teachers were less focused due to meetings in the early morning. On early releases, knowing that teaching is done for the day, it is easier to focus on collaboration.”
Although there are many mixed opinions among students and staff, schools in the district will continue to have early releases on days scheduled for staff meetings. For those who prefer late start days will have to get use to early releases for the time being. Let’s see where this new change will lead to and what other changes the district has in store.
