District implements new schedule for upcoming school year
The district has created a new schedule for the 2021-22 school year, implementing an eighth period into the school day.
Though Principal John Puccio didn’t give an exact date for when students will receive their schedules, the administration recently presented the schedules to the teachers and is now working on fine-tuning the schedules.
“Our priority right now is [finalizing the individualized student schedules, and] we’re planning to send them out shortly,” Puccio said.
Puccio said while developing the new schedule for the upcoming school year, the administration felt that it was important to keep similar opportunities that Pascack Period would bring, “[and although] it’s not equivalent to the old Pascack Period, it’s giving kids that time back”.
Students have been given the opportunity to take an elective in place of Pascack Period, which gives them the opportunity to explore and gain experience in a subject they may be interested in.
The administration found that in years past, Pascack Period was “very useful” in providing students opportunities to work with teachers and giving students extra time during the school day.
“We’re not looking for our students to take an abundant amount of hard AP classes,” Puccio said. “We want them to have the flexibility to take classes they may not have had the opportunity to take with just seven periods in a day.”
Feedback from students and teachers in the PV community helped determine the structure of the new schedule for the upcoming school year.
“One of the biggest feedbacks we received was that students and teachers liked the structure of [having a specific schedule for each day of the week],” Puccio said. “[Also], we moved away from the large block of 80-minute classes.”
Puccio said the administration learned from the community’s feedback that “if [the schedule] had a four-day rotation, the fifth day [would return to the beginning of the cycle] and people would get confused”.
Puccio said the “all day” schedule, where students meet with all of their classes, will average around 41 minutes per class period, while the rotation periods average around 56 minutes per class period.
“The feedback from the students and teachers [was] amazing, and we took them into consideration when creating [the schedule] for the students, teachers, and administrators,” Puccio said. “We’re excited to get everyone back in the building on Sept. 1.”
Sarah Shapiro is a senior who has been in The Valley Echo since her freshman year. She became an editor in her junior year and editor-in-chief in her...
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