DJ Sixsmith ’11
Web Sports Editor

After rumors swirled around the school of a schedule change for next year, principal John Dodig and the Collaborative team finally pulled the trigger by announcing that periods 1 and 7 will be swapping places on Monday’s next year.

This change means that now period 7 will start the day on Monday while period 1 will be in the afternoon after the lunch wave. Principal Dodig explains the reasoning behind this decision.

“The idea was brought up by a member of the Collaborative team because of the fact that period 7 was constantly hit by afternoon early dismissals. By making this change we were able to reduces kids missing a particular class and allow each period to meet twice in the morning and twice after lunch in the course of the school week.”

According to Dodig, the original scheduling change that was put on the table was swapping periods 4 and 7, however that idea was quickly put to rest after an issue with the music department surfaced.

While Dodig is usually the one who makes the final decision on important issues such as the school budget, this time around the entire Collaborative team was able to weigh in equally.

“This was never a controversial decision which allowed for a straw poll in which everybody on the Collaborative team had an opportunity to vote on this decision,” Dodig said.

With this decision becoming effective come next fall, this is the first time a major scheduling decision has been made during Dodig’s time as principal.

Over the years numerous scheduling requests had been shot down such as bringing back homeroom and changing the start time of school. Dodig explains the reason why these scheduling changes were never made.

“We have learned over the past three years that there is no perfect schedule. It is difficult to make changes when we are contracted to have 182 school days and spend a certain amount of minutes in the classroom.”

Despite Dodig’s confidence in the positive response to this decision, students are not necessarily feeling the same way. Mike Berlin ’11 explains that while he understands why the decision was made, he believes that the change will not be well received.

“I think in terms of equality amongst the periods, it’s the right thing to do, but for students such as the incoming class of seniors, it will be annoying to adjust to after three years of the same routine.”

With a change made so late in the school year, it will be interesting to see what kind of impact Dodig’s move will have on the exhilarating and head-aching process of Arena next week.