Students see benefits, problems in Anchor Days
School opens with new schedule for fourth consecutive year
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The 2022-2023 school calendar showing the yellow Anchor Days. The new day was added on Wednesdays where all periods meet for 35 minutes
With the new Anchor Days thrown into the mix, the routine of Blue and Green Days the last two years has been disrupted.
This year, an Anchor Day was added on Wednesdays in which all 8 periods meet for 35 minutes. The wrinkle with the new anchor day is that on weeks when there is no school day, no Anchor day occurs.
Another wrinkle with the added day is that classes meet at different times of day than block days which confused students on the first Anchor day. Junior Briana Jackson said she struggled with the timing and making sure she went to the correct science period on time during the first Anchor Days.
With lessons shortened by 50 minutes, teachers have to limit the number of activities they do in the class period. On block days teachers can give a quiz or activity at the beginning of class, and then do another activity or lesson the next half. This has given teachers the ability to fit more variety into one class period.
Spanish teacher JJ Hill said, “in MCL we tend to do a lot of different activities in a day anyway. I might do four for five on a block day with 85 minutes and do two on an Anchor Day.”
Anchor Days also give departments time to hold day-long meetings. This means that on most Anchor days there are two departments whose classes don’t meet. . This is the same idea as the ‘personal learning time’ the school implemented in the second semester last year.
For some students, the canceled classes create gaps in their schedules and students were left with no classes for 1-2 hours or ended their days 2 hours early.
“I was done with classes at like 1:30 and the classes felt short,” said Senior Nate Herman.
Hill said, “I think [anchor days] feel like more of a disruption rather than sort of a rhythm of the schedule.”
While students said the they will have to adjust to the new anchor day, the days also come with benefits. . When students have larger gaps in their school days or teachers use the class time as review period, it saves students time with homework because they get designated time during the school day.
“I think it’ll be nice because it’s like a Gray Day where a lot of teachers will just let you get some work done independently,” Herman said.