By Brian Diaz, Staff Writer
The SFUSD is requiring all high schools to have only one early release day per week, so Galileo will have a different schedule for 2023-2024, with the major change being all classes meet on Wednesday and Thursday, for either 30 minutes or 75 minutes, depending on the day.
This new schedule was designed by math teacher, Mr. Keough, who used algebra to solve the problem of how to keep block schedules on 2 days of the week, while also considering there is only 1 early release day. “ I thought of students and what their need were, like students having trouble sitting in really long classes, because when I was on college I had really long classes I had troubles sitting for long periods of time and I thought it was bad for students, so I was thinking from the perspective of sports,” said Mr. Keough.
rejected due to the advisory period being too vague and ideas that did not support Richard CCSF courses for health,and came out with a version that is the most likely to be chosen, that has several advantages.
When the administration first found out about needing to revise the schedule for next year, they presented the staff with multiple options. The schedule that had the highest number of votes was “option B”, which is very similar to the schedule Galileo currently has, where students meet their 1st, 3rd,and 5th classes on Wednesday and also be released early, but Thursdays all students would have an advisory time after 2nd period, followed by 4th, lunch and 6th. Students would get out at 3:38pm on Thursdays.
Even though option B was the most popular among teachers, the schedule had problems in meeting requirements by the district. The assistant superintendent rejected the schedule because the advisory period was too vague, and she needed more specific descriptions of how that will promote students’ college and career readiness needs.
When Mr. Keough found out that “option B” was rejected, he decided to analyze the problem from a teacher and athlete perspective and thought that having long classes was a problem for students. He used the system of equations taught in Algebra I, where he called “X’ the long periods, and “Y” the short periods, so for Wednesday the school could have 4 short periods and 2 long ones in 280 minutes, and in the other days, 2 short periods and 4 longs one in 360 minutes, or 2X+4Y = 280 and 2Y+4X=360 which rounded up to 30 for block periods and 75 for regular classes.
This schedule has several advantages for the school, including keeping block periods, not having rotation periods, and an extra 30 minutes for the teacher to wrap up and check in with students on Wednesdays & Thursdays. The schedule also meets the requirements for the Health Academy, which needs block period to support the CCSF classes that students have to take.
Students and staff have varying views on the new schedule. Assistant principal Mr. Panjabi said, “Some people say that one negative [of the schedule] is that many students will skip the shorter periods. The flip side is that the shorter periods allow for added flexibility in how time is used.” Junior Daniel N. said, “I prefer 2 blocks a day, but with this new schedule I can see how teachers will work around this. It will be kind of hard to navigate around it [the new schedule].”
Others are very positive about next year’s schedule. Social Studies teacher, Mr. Delgado said, “It just excites me that I would imagine that the schedule is going to reflect something that was thought to thrive. Any sort of schedule change allows us teachers to reflect on past Curriculum and how to make the most dynamic with the time allowed.” While junior Isrrael M said, “I kind of don’t like that we one have one release day at week, but meeting some of my classes for 30 minutes will help me check in with my teachers and finish some assignments. ”
