Pennridge Alters the Two Hour Delay Schedule

Jamieson Murray, Student Writer

A new two hour delay schedule is in place for Pennridge High School.  On January 23, administration sent out an announcement to all students via Canvas informing them of a change to the current two hour delay schedule.  The previous schedule had students attending their first, second, or third period class for 47 minutes on a rotation every delay. The new schedule will have students attend their first period class for 36 minutes and every other class for 34 minutes with 30 minute lunches.  The change in the schedule has raised many questions, the most frequent one being ‘why?’. The teacher responsible for suggesting the change was Mrs. West who is part of a committee of teachers and administration who are consistently coming up with ways to better the school. Her main reason for altering the schedule was to prevent skipping morning classes because of a delay.  By allowing all classes to be attended, morning and afternoon classes will be able to remain at the same spot in the curriculum. Time slots were chosen to make sure that there was enough time in each class for teachers to give a decent amount of instruction without losing a whole morning’s worth of lessons. Pennridge’s goal is to keep the teachers in front of the classroom, and the change to the schedule allows for just that.

This change in schedule will allow students to keep on track with their classwork and allow teachers to stay consistent with their lesson plans.  Dr. Cashman also made clear another benefit for the school community as a whole: relationship building. He stated the importance he places on this principle by saying, “I think it’s important for teachers to spend as much time with kids so they can build relationships”.  Since students can now expect to see all of their teachers during a delay schedule, this will allow for more time for these relationships to be built. The process of the change itself also reflected the relationship between teachers and administration. The two departments worked as a team to see Mrs. West’s idea was implemented into a new schedule. In a statement from Dr.Bolton, he said, “I like the fact that the teachers and administrators thought about it and talked about it, and wondered if this is better than what we had before”.  With this teamwork, the school can expect to see beneficial changes similar to this in the future. 

The two hour delay isn’t the only new schedule change for Pennridge this year, the three hour delay is also a possibility.  The idea of a three hour delay has been in the works for three years according to Dr. Bolton.  The delay would operate by rotating periods one, two, and three for every three hour delay called.  Although this delay is a choice for administration, both Dr. Bolton and Dr. Cashman admit that it is rarely necessary, and hasn’t been up to this point.  The situation in which one would be called is if that extra hour would allow weather conditions to clear up enough for school to still take place. This is a hard call to make, especially considering student drivers.  Dr. Bolton expressed his concern by stating, “to have the responsibility of thinking we have 200 juniors and seniors on the road in a potentially dangerous situation makes the decision harder”. It would also create problems for the younger kids, particularly kindergarten.  The current plan in place is for AM kindergarten and PM kindergarten to alternate coming in if the delays became frequent (similar to what they already do with the two hour delays). Either way, regardless of what delay is chosen students can expect to get the most out of their school day no matter the weather conditions.