The students and staff at Cypress High School who have a zero period have had a huge change in their weekly schedule this year. This year, for the first time since Cypress opened 50 years ago, there are no zero period classes on Thursdays. Classes are now extended zero period on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays to be an hour and five minutes long instead of 55 minutes, to make up for the time missed on Thursdays.
Staff and students have various opinions about the new schedule. Many students who have a zero period were very excited to hear they wouldn’t have a class on Thursday. The students now have more time to sleep, spend time with friends and get their work done before their school day starts. The staff also benefit from the change as well because now they have time to go to professional development class, unlike last year when zero period teachers would sometimes miss their meetings before school.
There are three reasons for the schedule change. According to Mrs. Brown, the principal at Cypress High School, the schedule was a district-wide change because of a number of reasons. Late start teachers are supposed to attend professional development meetings on Thursdays, the teachers who have zero period would often miss the meetings and they would miss important information. A second issue was that there was a big time gap between zero period and first period. According to Brown, kids who were having to come in early for zero period had a wasted time span between zero period and first period. Staff were seeing an increase in issues with these students. Students were doing drugs, stealing from local stores, drinking alcohol, and some even got hit by cars. During this time students were unsupervised and it became an unsafe environment for kids. Lastly, this schedule change took place because of the bus schedule as the timings would clash with each other.
Grace Badolian, a senior at Cypress High School, states that this year’s schedule helps her mental health. She is now able to get more sleep on Thursday and has something to look forward to. Last year, when Badolian also had zero period, she would go to her class and after sitting in the halls waiting for her friends who didn’t have zero period, they could get breakfast. Now she is able to sleep in and leave ten minutes before her first period starts.
Although these changes have been good for most, there have been a few minor problems with the new schedule. One of the big ones is that now students are unable to meet with their teacher. This has been a slight problem because zero period teachers now have to rearrange their schedule just for zero period and it puts a large workload on students, especially those in AP classes and performance classes like band and dance.
Overall, this year’s new schedule is an improvement to the previous year’s schedule.
