The administration will be implementing a new schedule at the Upper School for the 2025-26 school year, in an effort to strengthen community and free up teacher schedules. Students will have fewer opportunities  to leave campus before the school day ends, and the Community Time block will be revised to feature more all-school events.

The modified schedule will impact odd days to the largest extent. Students without a commitment after their third class of the day were originally free to leave after 1 p.m., but under the new schedule, the earliest a student can leave on any given day will be 2 p.m. To do this, the Community Time and Conference Time periods will be moved to after the first block of the day, at 9:20 a.m.

After this hour-long period, the second class of the day will run from 10:30-11:45 a.m, followed by lunch and the third class of the day. On even days, the 45-minute Conference Time block will be moved up after the first class with a 15-minute break in place between the last two classes of the day. Directed Study periods will remain scheduled from 2:15-3:00 p.m.

The hour-long periods on odd days will be Junior Seminar and Community Time, with Sophomore and Senior Seminar moved to the 45-minute periods. Although the Community Time period was originally free for students without seminar, events such as the Activities Fair, Club Fair and all-school speaker events will be scheduled weekly during this block. This is the only block that will be called Community Time, as other “free” blocks for students without seminar will be called “Office Hours.”

FAC Chair and scheduler Heather Audesirk was in charge of creating the new schedule and worked with Dean of Students Jordan Church, Director of Teaching and Learning Daniel Gutierrez and Assistant Director of Learning Center Ramon Visaiz.

Audesirk said said she worked in partnership with an external scheduling company — responsible for the Middle School’s new block schedule — Independent School Management (ISM) to ensure the schedule was the most effective for the school community.

“I worked with a scheduling expert to determine the best time of day to have things like Community Time, class meetings and office hours,” Audesirk said. “They provided research that demonstrates the best time for these non-academic blocks is after the first academic class of the day and separate from times such as lunch. I also asked them what they thought the potential advantages and disadvantages of moving these blocks to earlier in the day would be in terms of factors such as sports absences, community building and students being best able to focus in class. I created a few sample schedules that we shared with ISM to get their feedback, and they helped us narrow the choices down to the current proposal.”

Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said she hopes moving the community time block will limit the ability for students to leave campus early, prevent students from meeting with teachers during lunch and allow for a more reasonable lunchtime.

“Moving community time leads to kids feeling the administration is taking their time away from them,” Slattery said. “However, the current spacing has not done a good job of building community and our goal is to prevent loose blocks at the end of the day. One thing I’ve struggled with is knowing that all kids want to do is leave as early as possible, but that creates the problem of putting pressure on the faculty to meet with students at lunch. Moving this block into the earlier part of the day to finish homework before class meets. Another benefit is that now lunch will be at [a more normal] lunch time.”

Slattery also said the schedule will foster more clearly defined blocks for guest speakers and grade-level seminars.

“What happened with the current schedule is that community time became aggregated with junior and sophomore seminars,” Slattery said. “The new schedule will have separate slots for these times, so community time will be the slot for school speakers and school-wide activities such as activities fair rather than plugging them into times where students will sometimes feel the administration is taking time away from them. I think it is important to have designated slots where everybody should expect something every week to provide more community time and allow people to engage with one another.”

Mila Detmer ’27 said she is unhappy with the schedule change because it prevents her from being able to leave school early.

“I think it is awful that they are changing the schedule next year,” Detmer said. “I enjoyed having community time at the end of the day because I was able to leave school early. This allowed me to have the ability to hang out with friends, get homework done earlier and was a great time to meet with teachers if needed.”

Amanda Shu ’27 said she would prefer to keep Community Time at the end of the day because it effectively spreads out breaks and is a more convenient time to meet with teachers.

“I would rather keep the current schedule where Community Time is in the afternoon because we already have a break in the morning from an early lunch, so adding an additional break in the morning wouldn’t serve a great purpose,” Shu said. “I also have a majority of my classes after lunch and normally have different questions or reasons to meet with my teachers by the end of the day. I appreciate the current Community Time because I find it very useful to meet with teachers at the end of the day rather than the morning. Also, after a long day at school, it’s very nice to have the chance to leave early and end my day before Community Time.”

Josh Massey ’26 said he believes the schedule is a positive change for the community because it permits people to eat lunch at a more reasonable time, even if that’s at the expense of an earlier community time.

“I believe there is a biological benefit for children to eat lunch later than 10:45 am. Our current lunchtime is an unclear line between breakfast and lunch, leading to students skipping breakfast to eat lunch early,” Massey said. “The schedule change will allow lunchtime to be more clear and less befuddled with breakfast. Although I know this means the schedule will be moved around, I think it’s worth it. I don’t entirely see the justification for moving community time to prevent people from leaving early, but apart from that, I think it’s a good idea.”

Audesirk said she understands the possible shortcomings of the schedule due to student athletes missing more class instruction because of excusal times and decreased functionality without a break near the end of the day.

“We know that there is no such thing as a perfect schedule with no disadvantages, and we are simply hoping that the advantages of the proposed changes outweigh the disadvantages,” Audesirk said. “We are concerned that students will miss more academic class time due to sports excusals that previously were during class meetings, but we also value what takes place during those class meetings, so either way the students will miss important parts of the school day. We are also slightly concerned that students might be slightly less focused in class at the end of the school day, but ISM tells us that each person has a different time of day they are able to best focus, meaning it is not likely to be a huge issue. In addition, the rotation of the blocks makes it as equitable as possible because all classes meet at all different times of the day.”