The Pascack Valley dismissal bell rings at 2:53 p.m this year instead of 2:51 p.m. like it had in the past.

The district added two minutes to the school day and took five minutes off of lunch, allowing for one more minute of instructional time each period this school year. This adds up to seven extra minutes of classes each day and thirty-five extra minutes per week.

According to Pascack Valley District Superintendent Erik Gundersen, this schedule was put into place because the school wanted to increase instructional time throughout the day.

“The prime motivation was, ‘How can we get more instructional time back into the classroom?’” Gundersen said. “We felt that the amount of time, not so much on the block days, but on the non-block days, was just a little bit too short.”

The Pascack schedule was first implemented in the 2015-2016 school year. During a typical week, there are three regular days and two block days.

Three years later, the administration decided that lunch was slightly longer than necessary and the class periods were too short.

According to Gundersen, the schedule change also had to do with the teacher contract re-negotiation.

“The Teachers’ Association negotiates with the school district about employment conditions and their terms of employment,” Gundersen said. “So we were able to negotiate with the Teachers’ Association the addition of two more minutes onto the school day.”

PV math teacher and Vice President of the Teachers’ Association Maria Hinrichsen was involved in these negotiations.

Hinrichsen said that many students are unhappy that the lunch period is now five minutes shorter than it had been in previous years.

“On a block day, typically lunch is cut short, and I have lab on a block day,” sophomore Katie Smith said. “This gives me 20 minutes to get my lunch and try and get work done for other classes which can become really stressful.”

Some students in other lunchtime activities and clubs said this time change can also be an issue.

“For me, whenever I have lunch choir and have to get back and try and do homework and eat lunch, those five minutes would be really helpful for me to have in order to make that possible,” sophomore Isabella Tjan said. “Since those five minutes have been cut, I lose a lot of time.”

However, Gundersen maintains that the extra time added to each class is beneficial.

“It seems a little bit trivial to some extent that there’s one minute added back into each period,” Gundersen said. “Every little bit helps.”

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