BMU students will have new scheduling options next year, with the alternating blue/gold days ending and more 45-minute classes to choose from. Another notable change for next year’s schedule is that school will be starting at 7:40 am and ending at 2:20 pm, allowing bus drivers more time to complete their routes and get to the other schools. Also, the new school year brings new classes including: Mentoring, VTSU Elementary Oceanography, Family/Interpersonal Relationships, US History of Women, and Personal Finance. Two specialized blocks will be added to next year’s schedule, a “bucks block” and a “flex block.” The bucks block will be the first class of the day and will be similar to this year’s advisory. The flex block will be the last class of the day, and in this last block, students have the option of selecting band, chorus, biology, study hall, and a mentor workshop. These blocks were made to allow students to catch up on homework and projects, based on feedback from students; these changes should alleviate frustrations related to short blocks and not enough time to do homework and out-of-school activities.

This move to semester block classes will be an adjustment for many high school students, and school counselor Dawn Blanchard encourages them to make the most of these changes; “Embracing change is something that I would like to instill in students very early on because that’s what life is all about, it’s about a lot of changes and how you deal with them.” High School Principal Emilie Knisley notes that semester-block classes are used commonly in many other schools and in colleges. She hopes that implementing this schedule change will help build a solid foundation for college-bound students and allow more consistency in schedules for students who plan on pursuing work-study programs.