Starting next year Ridgeview High School will now be starting school at 9:20 in the morning. This will mean an entire new start and end time for students, but how will students at Ridgeview adapt to this new schedule? 

Most students’ way of transportation to school is being driven by their parents. Students discuss the issue with their parents’ work schedule colliding with the school’s new schedule. 

“Many students have parents that go to work early or right after they are dropped off. Having school later could become problematic for many students,” says 9th grader Janelle Lancaster. 

Assistant Principal of Administration, Taiasha  Alvarado even weighed in on the subject. “Our district will work to make sure that all the buses are where they need to be when they need to be… it can affect them [students who are dropped off at school] in different ways depending on when their parents have to get to work.”

Although with this unfavorable obstacle there are some students looking at this with a more positive outlook. Jorge Magana, freshman at Ridgeview talks about the benefits of having a new starting time for school. “I feel like I can get my day ready more easily because I have more time to wake up so I’m more focused in school.” Another freshman, Dana Samarneh adds, “It’s beneficial because the later you wake up, you’re more awake”. 

But the biggest challenge with this new school schedule is the conflict with after school extracurricular activities. Most students talk about how a later morning start means a later afternoon release, this causes issues with things like sports or school clubs. 

“The only way I can think of to prevent the collision of after school activities and the new school schedule would be to either move extracurriculars to the weekends or shorten the school day”. Lancaster suggests and adds, “Another thing would be to only have a few classes a day; like two subjects per day”.

“Logically things will be a lot later,” Alvarado says, “go home in the dark, tutoring in the dark, sports may have to start earlier they may start in the school day. But all of that stuff is up in the air”. 

With all this, the main priority for students should be adjusting to the new school start time.  “Changing your sleep schedule,” Samarneh reminds us when transitioning to a new schedule. Luckily for students the new start time is starting later in the day, maybe even meaning more time for students. 

Now even though the district has confirmed this schedule change students still have trouble understanding the benefits for this schedule for everyone overall. “I think this change is a bad idea. Many students are already procrastinators and would become more lazy from this change. Most students would also wish to go home more since this schedule most likely requires students to stay later at school”, Lancaster discusses the frustrations and difficulty with a new schedule. 

Although with all this doubt in the new school schedule it’s important to remember and adjust to the idea that even if it doesn’t seem beneficial now that is the district’s main intentions.