Rogue Reform 5: A Shifted Schedule

We all know that teenagers have shifted sleep schedules. This is not news. What would be news is if any school districts made the move to radically reform the school day around said sleep schedules. So here’s my radical rogue proposal:

What if we held sports practice and other extracurriculars in the morning, say 9:00-11:00 AM? Then students could have a whole hour to shower and eat and go to class 12:00-6:00 PM. If sporting competitions were also held in the morning, we might have to shift our mindset about sports, too, in this scenario. Or we might have to recognize that sports have value in and of themselves so missing evening classes for evening competitions would not result in academic penalties. But this former student-athlete thinks that would probably be okay 🙂

The parallel schedules for elementary and middle school would be shifted, too. Elementary might run 8:45-3:45 so high school siblings could drop them off in the morning, and middle schools might run 9:15-4:15.

This shifted schedule concept could, and probably should, also be combined with other types of radical school/academic/classroom change.

A schedule change this dramatic would require buy-in from all facets of society. But if we value education like we say we do, this shouldn’t be a problem, right?

A big problem with school reform is that we seem to just be reorganizing the same box of tools. School hours stay the same. The closed-door classroom stays the same. The required classes stay the same. What if we threw out (excuse me, recycled)the box?

It’s time for political leaders to stop giving lip service to education. Practically speaking, on the ground, in the school buildings, nothing is changing that actually benefits students or teachers. And we all know it. Even the general public knows it. So if we’re going to be all about students, then we need to be brave and try something radically outside the box. I dare us.