By Amy Ta & Joanne Su Chan,
Staff Writer & Production Editor
Changes are coming to the school’s bell schedule in the incoming year. In a meeting on May 31, teachers voted on new changes to the schedule, including the number of Wednesday late starts and mandatory office hours.
Beginning next school year, office hours are mandatory for all students in the first three weeks of the first semester, and the first two weeks of the second semester.
Afterwards, only students with a D or an F must go to office hours. For the rest, office hours will remain optional.
The intervention steps are similar to RAMS, which changed into Office Hours during quarantine. RAMS was an intervention class where students went to their teachers for help for 30 minutes. It was mandatory for freshmen for the first six weeks of school, becoming optional after the six weeks ended. Teachers will have a chance to vote on the intervention process at the end of every year.
The changes voted on also decrease the number of Wednesday late starts for the next school year. The 2023-2024 school year will have 20 Wednesday late starts spread out throughout the year instead of every week, including three late starts in the month of May. This increases the number of instructional minutes in the school year.
The exact times for the new bell schedule should come out before the last day of this semester. First period will still begin at 8:30, as in compliance with Ed. Code 46148, which states all high schools must begin their school day no earlier than 8:30. Wednesday’s bell schedule is still unknown.
One rumor suggested that off-campus passes would disappear by next year, but off-campus passes are available for next year. This means juniors and seniors are able to go off campus during lunch hours. Lunch is likely to become much shorter in order to make up for the longer instructional periods.
The current bell schedule isn’t reaching the yearly instructional minutes as stated in Ed. Code 46207. The Ed Code states all California high schools must have at least 64,800 minutes for a total school year, but the school does not reach this minimum.
The new changes aim to make sure the school is in compliance with the Ed Code. The school counted zero period into the total instructional time, which helped the school’s total instructional time reach the required 64,800 minutes.
Due to the State of California changing the amount of instructional minutes counted prior to 8:30, this sparked the schedule changes. Should the school break the Ed Code next year, the superintendent must reduce funding given to the school based on average daily attendance multiplied by the minimum amount of instructional minutes.