To make time for the daily morning announcements, administration has updated the bell schedule in hopes of increasing student awareness of campus events.

An additional three minutes have been added to periods three and four, which required subtracting one minute from the remaining periods.  

“We wanted to really emphasize teachers showing the announcements during the second block of the day,” Assistant Principal Donna Besser said. “To help us do that, we added time so no teachers could say, ‘Well, I don’t have enough time in class.’”

With the change of schedule, some teachers, like Algebra I teacher Kristin Landau, are having difficulty adjusting.

“I’m the one that’s having trouble keeping track of, ‘Okay, when does this period end? How much time do I have left? When should I be wrapping things up?’ It’s me, I’m the one having the problem,” Landau said. “The freshmen just proceed ahead as [if] nothing is different.”

Members of the Rout(e)131 team anticipate a rise in viewership.

“A lot of the viewership we get just off of the YouTube page coming from the outside is growing,” Video Production teacher Ernesto Zita said. “I don’t know if you’d know this, but a lot of parents religiously watch the announcements every day. Believe me, I hear it.”

Despite the minute reduction in other periods, administration was still able to meet the district requirements of the number of minutes for classes to receive credit.

“They’re called Carnegie units, and you have to have a certain amount of time for your classes to be able to get the credit,” Besser said. “On average, you [need] to have 60 hours per semester to meet those Carnegie units. We’re between 61 and 63 for every class, so we were able to take those few units out and still be well over what we need for the semester.” 

Student Council Second Vice President Joanna Mengistu hopes the period extension will be helpful to increase awareness of what is happening at school.

“It allows clubs and organizations, staff, administration, and students to be able to get their message out there,” Mengistu said. “I think it is really important for people to know about events to just find out what [the student body] is interested in and to know what is going on around the school.”

The general understanding of the morning announcements from students has significantly increased as to what is happening on campus.

“I can actually understand the announcements and not get rushed because there was so little time for it,” sophomore Savvy Leung said. “Now that they’re longer, they give much more detail and information.”