It’s 12:01 pm, and my Biology Honors class is starting. My stomach growls and begs me for the sushi I had been planning to eat for lunch. The rice is sitting in a bowl on my dresser. The vegetables are sliced. Somehow, I need to make my lunch in my bedroom during biology.  

This was my struggle on Monday, January 11, 2021; the first remote day of the new hybrid model. The new hybrid model that is even more of a disaster than the first.

As a junior at Cherry Creek High School, my schedule has six classes with first and fifth off. It’s well divided so that my AP and honors classes are split up in a way that I don’t have too many in the morning or the afternoon. 

With the previous hybrid model, my schedule looked the same as it does now. And, Creek had office hours on Monday – which were a great opportunity to get extra help for classes that I was struggling with – and two cohorts that switched every two days for in person classes. 

For me, this meant, I had remote office hours on Monday and in person school with cohort A on Tuesday and Wednesday. This hybrid model is remote school on Monday, and I go in person on Tuesday and Thursday. 

Since we switched to an actual school day on Mondays instead of office hours, many people were expecting what looked like a normal school day except on an online platform.

But, there were some technicalities with having the usual, straight, periods one to eight schedule on a remote Monday because of the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus. Instead of my normal schedule, I now have an off period, a class, an off period, and five more classes in a row after that. And, my AP and honors classes are packed in one-after-another without a break.

So, that’s where my lunch predicament came from. Sure, I could’ve eaten my lunch during fifth period, but on a Monday, fifth period is at the time that – on a normal school day – is third period. I wasn’t going to eat my lunch at 10:30 in the morning.

I feel even worse for my teachers because they cannot eat their lunches when they’re teaching. They have their cameras turned on and need to talk to their students; they have to eat during their off periods, even if that means 10:30 am.

It’s true that I am only one of many students at Creek, and the whole schedule should not change to accommodate me. But, as I talked to other students and teachers throughout the day, I saw that they were having the same problems as me. Four to five classes in a row. Trying to eat lunch during a class or at a time too early or late in the day, a lot of additional stress.

Luckily, the amount of people who noticed this almost all shared similar ideas on how to fix these problems. The two points that stood out to me the most were: 1. Going back to the normal schedule, and 2. Adding in a lunch period/break between periods six and three.

Principal Silva caught wind of some of these complaints and sent the staff a new idea for Mondays, asking them to get student feedback regarding it. It would look like this:

Per. 1  8:20 – 9:06

Per. 2  9:12 – 9:58

Per. 5  10:04 – 10:50

Per. 6  10:56 – 11:42

Break  11:42 – 12:08

Per. 3  12:08 – 12:54

Per. 4  1:00 – 1:46

Per. 7  1:52 – 2:38

Per. 8  2:44 – 3:30

Since the day is the same length, the periods and passing periods are shortened to make room for the break from 11:42 to 12:08. This break is right during lunchtime, so everyone will have an opportunity to grab something to eat at a regular time of day. 

Also, notice that the period order is the same as the current Monday schedule. This is to accommodate for the innovation campus students.

Even though it’s still not perfect, it’s an improvement. With this schedule students and staff wouldn’t have to worry about having five periods in a row or not knowing when to eat lunch.

This school year is anything but normal and this schedule is, too. We just have to take what we’re given with stride and seize any opportunity that comes our way to improve this crazy 2020-2021 school year; and, most of all, we need to seize this potential change to the Monday schedule.