After only two years of a new later start schedule, Poway Unified School District (PUSD) decided to adjust the start and end times for high schools around the district.
The district considered the idea earlier this year and made the change for the 2024-2025 school year. Next year school will get out at 3:35 p.m. Currently, school starts at 8:35 a.m. and ends at 3:45 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
By changing the schedule the district is creating solutions to things that have an impact on students like after school activities, transportation issues, and having appointments in the afternoon.
The current schedule also extends the school day beyond the previous seven hours.
Sophomore Layne Barringer thinks the change will be beneficial since we already get out so late, but it does not go far enough. “In reality, this is only 10 minutes sooner, and it would be more beneficial if school started earlier and ended earlier as well.”
To put the deleted minutes back into the schedule, the Wednesday schedule will begin 20 minutes earlier at 9:35 a.m. Before the 2022-2023 school year, school would start at 7:30 a.m. every day and end at 2:30 p.m. with the exception of Mondays, when Titans would be released at 1:30 p.m.
A new state law required a later start time for high school students. When the change was made to starting at 8:35 a.m. and ending at 3:45 p.m., many students instantly wished for the old sched- ule back.
On the other hand students who are not morning people were glad that they had that extra hour of sleep. Even after the finalization of next year’s earlier release, there are still students who
want to return to an even earlier dismissal schedule while also starting at 8:35 a.m.
However, because California state law states that students need to be in school for 64,800 minutes over a span of 180 days (totaling to 360 minutes a day), an early dismissal schedule would not be possible. No matter the start time, athletes are leaving school early to be able to make it to their games or meets.
When students leave during fourth or fifth period for sports, it causes them to miss valuable learning time. Missing the same classes so often puts student at a disadvantage, impacting their grade or sleep in trying to keep up.
Because of the later schedule, they do not have much time in the evening after sports to catch up, which leads to a continuous cycle.
AVID and AP Spanish teacher Julianna Tovar believes that with a late start Wednesday “no one really comes in before school for tutoring. I see them struggling a lot to make up their work.”
The new start and end times will match all of the high schools in the district and will ensure that the school is meeting the minutes requirements. One way they plan to do so is to shorten
passing periods. “The extra minutes between 3:35 and 3:45 p.m. aren’t going into classes and we are losing those minutes. Passing periods will be one or two minutes shorter. The only reason why we had a six minute passing period is because when we started the construction for the school in 2001, students had to travel farther to each class so they made the passing period longer and never changed the time back,” principal Richard Nash said.
