New Trier High School plans to significantly change the school’s class schedule in the 2026-2027 school year by cutting science minutes to make room for flexible scheduling. Currently, science classes are taught for 280 minutes weekly, but the new schedule would decrease that to 200 minutes. Under the new system, science classes will move from a daily schedule to an every-other-day format, aligning with the schedule already in place for other subjects.

This new schedule aims to free up more time for students during their school day and to adapt to shifts in science instruction.

“One of the things we wanted to ensure is that students have opportunities to pursue a variety of interests they may have in school.”

The schedule will not only open up more doors for students but will also provide opportunities for students with support classes to still be able to take courses they may not otherwise have the opportunity to take. Additionally, these changes have been created to mesh with the school’s efforts towards a program called Future Programming that would also foster more flexibility.

“[Future Programming] work will bring opportunities for students to have more flexible and individual opportunities to pursue learning experiences that are not based on a set time where you would be in a class,” Tragos said. “Much of that is around career connected learning, so student’s might have internships during the day, they might have these career connected opportunities to explore fields they’re interested in, as well as short seminars, or mini courses that are offered. The meshing of those two things are coming together so our students will see some opportunities in those areas that don’t yet exist.”

Supporters of this change find that this would benefit students as they could take more classes or have more free periods.

“I like that people would have more time in their schedules. I feel like sometimes a lot of kids are overloaded with work and so having more space in schedules for free periods would probably be beneficial for a lot of students,” senior Penny Evatz said.

Others are concerned that cutting science minutes would result in student learning loss, as teachers would have less time to cover material. 

“I feel like right now science covers a lot of information and many labs, so I’m kind of worried about how much lab time or even class learning would have to be cut out of the curriculum as a part of these changes,” senior Sofy Barba said.

To accommodate such a cut in time for science classes, the Science Department is figuring out what changes need to be made to the curriculum to optimize the material covered in science classes in an efficient manner with the time they have left.

“Over the past two years, teachers have been working to make these curricular decisions,” Science Department Chair Jason English said. “The way we’ve been approaching that is seeing what the education and science experts say that kids need to learn today and we’ve been building our courses around those. They’re called the Next Generation Science Standards.”

The decision to change the science schedule will not affect Advanced Placement (AP) science classes, though. The material covered in these classes will remain the same as the College Board, which puts in place AP course curriculums, has a set structure for what material must be taught throughout the course. 

However, to continue with efforts to make classes more accessible to students, New Trier plans to reduce the prerequisites for AP science classes. Historically, students had to take two level 4 science courses or three level 3 courses to qualify for AP science. 

Under the new guidelines, students will only need to complete one level 3 and one level 4 course to be eligible for AP science, making these AP courses accessible to a broader group of students.

 “It really is about providing opportunities for students to have greater access to AP classes, who we believe are perfectly suited to these classes,” Tragos said. “Now these students can access the classes in 11th grade, and the Science Department is ensuring they are prepared.”

The administration has prioritized ensuring students optimize their learning while thriving under the new schedule.

”We are really working to ensure that these students have the best 200 minutes of science as possible,” English said.