To accommodate for the new 2022-2023 bell schedule that positions lunch before break, the Associated Student Body [ASB] got administrative approval to move from fifth to third period.

“We generally have, in the past before our new schedule, had our ASB period right before lunch because we had a lot of lunchtime activities,” ASB co-adviser David Fenstermaker said. “With lunch following the third period next year, we wanted the ASB period to coincide right before lunch like previous years.”

Sophomore Garv Jain, who joined ASB’s leader committee this school year, said he prefers the class period to remain during fifth, despite the new schedule.

“I feel like it’s not going to change much logistically and may make things less convenient,” Jain said. “People without a sixth period will not be able to use the free period to continue working on ASB activities, like we did when filming videos for dances.”

Besides the move to third period, Fenstermaker said he also plans to switch ASB’s double period assemblies from second to third period before the 11:36 a.m. lunch.

“Assemblies and lunch activities are going to necessitate some third period callouts next year,” he said. “And though we’ve been able to overcome that this year, I would prefer to have less callouts.”

Though Jain prefers the fifth period elective, he said he recognizes the benefits of pushing the period earlier in the school day.

“I think having it earlier will help a lot of us as students since we miss less classes on assembly days,” he said. “[The] ASB has a GPA requirement, and we hold our studies to a pretty high standard, so missing less classes will only benefit us.”

Administration traditionally scheduled multiple electives for fifth period to prevent students from enrolling in several simultaneously, like The Accolade, ASB or Helios. With the ASB period switch, however, students may want to enroll in more than one elective – something that program leaders would be leery about supporting. 

“I feel like this issue will be handled case by case,” Fenstermaker said. “I don’t want to tell students that they can’t do something, but I think it has been beneficial to all of our programs that students enroll in one program and not multiple.”

Upon learning last week from Fenstermaker about the ASB’s upcoming changes, English and journalism teacher Tommy Li has also asked administrators if the Journalism 1 elective can be moved to third period and the Advanced Journalism class after that.

“Since we usually distribute The Accolade newspaper in my beginning journalism class, it would be good to give students more time during lunch to read the issue instead of what they have been doing now – picking up the paper and hurrying to get to the next class and not really having a chance to absorb all of the wonderful content we have to offer,” Li said. “I surveyed my Advanced Journalism students to see what they thought of the idea, and I didn’t hear any opposition or concern.

“The move would also resolve some scheduling conflicts since Dance 3 has been traditionally offered fifth period, and IB [International Baccalaureate] Biology, I heard, would only be offered fifth period.”

As of May 11, yearbook adviser Lindsay Safe said she has no plans to move her fifth-period Helios staff to another time of the school day.