The administration marks the 2021-2022 school year with a brand new block schedule.
Meetings and whispers about the new schedule are floating around the school; during the 2021-2022 school year, Cardinal Mooney will be adopting a new form of block scheduling that is intended to grant more teaching time, and more student time.
Principal Dr. Mary Anne Beiting is the spearfront for the new concept. She has been studying block scheduling for years, and has seen other schools implement the “AB Block Scheduling” with many benefits.
“The current schedule doesn’t give much time for students outside of their class time, and the learning is very compressed, because you only have nine weeks or 18 weeks to complete courses,” Beiting said. “Providing more time for learning by extending the courses allows students to have more time to let the new information and skills plant and develop. To let students have a better understanding.”
My goal with all of this is to make a school culture that is centered with the students and allows students to be more involved and engaged. -Dr. Mary Anne Beiting
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Sophomore Olivia Rouser attended a meeting with Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin School students that use the same schedule Mooney is adopting. Rouser learned a lot from this meeting, and has changed her perspective on the new schedule.
“Before the meeting, I had a lot of concerns about the new schedule,” Rouser said. “At first I was not open to change. My viewpoint changed dramatically. The meeting relieved a lot of previous worries I had. I really do think the new schedule will help our students with time management, and help us prioritize what we need done.” |
With a change of schedule, students will be fully capable of finishing what they need to get done, especially with the addition of flex time.
Beiting said, “Part of it is that you all are so scheduled, you don’t have time to breathe except for lunch. But this way, if you haven’t seen your friends, you can see them. It’s truly student time to use for what they need to do. It’s a short period, but it's significant because it's for the students. I want it to be a student choice time.”
Sophomore Sarah Owens is looking forward to the student choice time. She has attended Mooney for two years, and while accustomed to the current scheduling, she believes that change can be good.
“I’m optimistic for the new schedule. There’s some things that I like, and other things that I dislike. I’m looking forward to trying something new,” Owens said. “I really like that we have flex time now. It will be a great place for me to get my homework done.”
With summer rolling in, and COVID slowly passing us by, change is nothing new, as daily life has changed significantly in the past year. While it might be scary to jump into the same school with a different schedule, students like Owens and Rouser suggest that optimism might be the key.