This year, BSM hour looks a little different, especially for freshman, sophomores, and juniors. When administration was creating the new rules, they wanted to include perspectives from the student body.  Select members of the student council and graduates from the class of 2022 offered their input based on their BSM experience. The biggest change for the 2022-2023 school year is that freshmen have assigned study spaces and sophomores and juniors have to sign in to a study space at the beginning of the hour. 

All freshmen are assigned to either a classroom or the theater depending on the space available during the hour. The goal in assigning freshmen to study spaces was to provide more structure and encourage positive study habits. “So it’s to provide… more structure,” Weingartz said. 

As students progress through the years, they are allotted more freedom throughout the day. All study spaces except the atrium, which is reserved for meetings, are available to sophomores and juniors during their free hour. Although older students are allowed greater freedom than the freshman, they are still required to sign in with a supervising teacher. Assistant principal Matt Weingartz describes the new rule as a safety and security precaution so that in case of an emergency all students can easily be accounted for. “It happens quite frequently where parents will call up and they’ll say, ‘I need to talk to them or they need to go to a doctor’s appointment or something like that.’ So it’s a lot easier if we know where they’re going to be,” Weingartz said. 

Sophomore Brooklyn Riley enjoys spending her free hour in the cube. While the new check in policy ensures the safety of students, it does not diminish students’ freedom in choosing where or how they spend their time. With the new cell phone policy, students are allowed to use their phones during their free hours. While some students might find their phones distracting, most students are able to responsibly monitor their phone use and time management. “I think I would just get as distracted on the computer. It does lead for a little bit more distraction, but it is not as terrible as people think,” Sophomore Brooklyn Riley said. 

The seniors are the only students with the privilege of coming to school late if they have first or second hour free and leaving early if they have seventh or eighth hour free. To limit the number of students in the building during COVID, all students were able to leave during any free hour, but the administration has returned to the previous rules of only seniors coming late or leaving early.