At 10am on Jan. 16, 2025, I was sitting in a class made up of juniors and seniors. Suddenly, all the juniors started to get upset, whispering to each other and staring at an email on their screens.
The seniors all sat there confused. We had not even left the school, and we already were being left out of important news.
Turns out, the email was about the new schedule that Loyola will be using. It will not be implemented until next year, hence why the seniors were not included.
Juniors, sophomores, and freshman, however, were emailed the details on the set up of the new schedule and its impact and benefits.
This new schedule, called Maroon and Gold, is made up of eight class periods. The classes will rotate, with students having four of the eight each day.
Each class will last eighty minutes, which is a big difference from the current fifty-five minute periods. The lunch/flex period students have now will also become eighty minutes long.
When I first heard that the schedule was changing, my initial reaction was “why?” I have had the RAMBLE schedule all four years of high school, which is made up of nine classes, with six each day.
I have always loved the fifty-five minute periods and felt that having each class two out of three days was a good frequency.
I do recognize and understand some of the benefits that will come from this new schedule, but I can also see some potential drawbacks.
One part of the new Maroon and Gold schedule that I think will be beneficial is the increased instructional time. The eighty minute class periods will allow for a total of around sixty-four more hours of learning. This will definitely help teachers to fit more into their curriculum and students to get more out of their classes.
However, I do not know if the trade off is really worth it. While the longer classes will allow for more learning hours, I think that eighty minutes is too long to ask students to sit in class.
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to focus on one subject for that long,” freshman Luc Joubert said.
Many other students echoed this statement. Eighty minutes is too long for a class, and many also find that it’s too long for a free period.
“I’m going to get bored when I have a free period,” sophomore Nora Duryea said. “That’s 160 minutes of the day when I don’t have anything to do.”
Though, I do think that all this free time might actually turn out to be beneficial. If students spend it in the library doing homework or meeting with a teacher, they could probably get a lot done. This could open up student’s evenings to more activities they enjoy.
Also, this would require students to learn valuable skills, such as focus and planning of free periods. But, if students cannot learn to do this, it will be a lot of minutes spent bored and off task.
One change I think will turn out to be really nice, with no downsides, is having each class every other day.
With the current schedule, some of the classes you have on a certain day, you will also have again the next day. It is very possible to be assigned homework due in less than twenty four hours that you did not plan for and do not have time to complete.
With the Maroon and Gold days, classes never fall on back to back days. This will allow students to have a clearer understanding of what homework they have due each day and to plan how they will get everything done.
“Doing homework is definitely going to be more manageable,” Duryea said.
I still do not really see the need for a new schedule and think it surely could have been kept the same. I know many students will be mourning our RAMBLE schedule.
I think Maroon and Gold will hold up, though. Eighty minute periods will probably prove to be a struggle for students, but I hope the benefits will pay off.
I guess as a senior graduating in a few months, it will not matter to me. I do look forward to hearing how it goes from the younger students.
