During COVID, Benilde-St. Margaret’s had a schedule change to accommodate all of the new policies they were told to follow. They changed the schedule once more last year to what is still the current schedule.

There seems to be both pros and cons to the schedule that is currently being used. “The feedback that I hear is that blocks are too long…but if you’re doing like a science lab, you’re able to do the whole thing, and you don’t have to chunk it out,” Assistant Principal Matt Weingartz said.

BSM seems to always be looking at switching back to the old schedule but hasn’t taken a step in that direction yet. “We’re always looking at it to see what’s best for students, ultimately, we want what’s best for [them] and how they’re learning. We would go through [both] teachers and students, evaluate it and not rush to any decision,” Weingartz said.

Teachers seem to like the blocks and find it better for their lesson plans. “I like a block schedule. I think it works well for my teaching style. I think it works well for the discipline that I teach in.” Theology teacher Becca Meagher said.

Meagher hasn’t found it too difficult to adjust to the schedule and seems to prefer that over the old schedule. “I think that it took a little bit of adjustment in terms of just making sure that there’s variety in the class period right in the 80 minute class period. But, but no, I haven’t had to do a ton of research or learning on how to teach a block,” Meagher said.

Other teachers such as History teacher Megan Kern have found it a bit more challenging to adjust. “It has been hard mostly because we had so many changes with the schedule in a short period of time,” Kern said.

There have been mostly positives about the block schedule especially for teachers who like to travel below surface level in conversations. “For theology class, I think it gives us an opportunity to go deeper into conversations than we could in a 40 minute class period. Having those 80 minutes allows us to dig a little deeper,” Meagher said.
The schedule also gives teachers access to cover more material in a single class period. “ [It] allows for a lot of variety of activities without rushing and urgency [to finish],” Kern said.

Along with positives there also are some negatives to having the longer schedule and having four classes every other day. I feel like sometimes I don’t see people for a really long time, like today, my even period kids. I won’t see them again now until Tuesday, because we don’t have school tomorrow,” Meagher said.

There has also been ideas to make the homework load for even period students a little more manageable. “It’s hard for kids with even block days to complete work for the eight period days in one night. So it would be great if that day maybe could get shifted to Monday. So everybody’s got a little time,” Kern said.