Over the course of the summer, Austin Independent School District (AISD) decided to lengthen the school days of Bowie High School from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., adding 20 more minutes to each day. This was done so that FIT could be incorporated into every school day, every week, excluding late start days. This change also allows for student sharing at select campuses around the district.

In addition to these already massive changes, AISD messed around with the A/B cycle of the weeks, making every Monday an A-day. This resulted in the creation of “special Fridays”, making every other Friday a B-day regardless of what day Thursday was, meaning students end up with Thursday and Friday both being B days roughly every other week.

I think these changes made to the schedule are extremely unnecessary and completely unfair.

For one, because of having FIT and one-and-a-half hour classes, FIT now only lasts 22 minutes. How is anyone supposed to get anything done in 22 minutes? I have to spend three days in FIT now to get one single assignment done. FIT lasted 45 minutes last year – that’s more than double the amount of time students get this year.

A second thing – because of the extra 20 minutes AISD tagged on to the end of the day, I now get home at 5:30 p.m., whereas last year I got home at a consistent 5:00 p.m. The extra 20 minutes slow down busses going out of Bowie more than one would think. In the extra time students stay in class, traffic begins to flare up. This problem doesn’t just apply to students who ride a bus home; student drivers are also affected by this problem. Whether the student is in a bus or a car, the traffic issues will remain the same.

Thirdly, this new A/B schedule is extremely unfair on certain students. If a student has a class that gives out consistent homework on a B day, such as Math, that means some days students have the full weekend to work on homework, while other times the homework will be due the very next day. In some cases, the B-day student may have a test on the next Friday and they only have Thursday to study for it, whereas A-day students would have the full weekend to study.

It may be too late to fix the schedule this year, however I still think there’s room for improvement for next year. All AISD has to do is implement the old A/B schedule again, where Mondays alternate between A and B days. Students who have homework/test giving classes on B days get the time they need to study with this change.

It would also be helpful if AISD were to extend FIT to last at least 35 minutes, even if it meant keeping the 4:30 p.m. release times. This way, at least it makes sense to keep FIT, as 35 minutes would allow students to get an assignment done.

The changes AISD made this year are both unneeded and unfair for the students of 2016.