The start of a new semester means that all students will be released at the same time for the first three weeks following finals.
Bruin Times have been delayed until February 10th.
At the beginning of each semester a traditional six period schedule is put into place for a varying amount of time. According to administration, this time is to allow teachers to put in their final grades so as to identify the students who will be placed in remediation, and host “arena scheduling” to schedule the underclassmen into their new Bruin Times.
Senior Grace Billingsley explained how this will affect her own life.
“[Not having Bruin Time] will make my life a lot more difficult, because I will not have the opportunity to work with my senior project mentor after school as usual; my available time will be cut in half,” she said. “… It certainly limits my schedule in terms of senior projects, doctors appointments, and other after school activities.”
“[I use Bruin Time for] working on homework,” said Sophomore Amy Ismail.
Fellow Senior Lydia Fuller-Hall said that she is sympathetic to the scheduling change, but she can also see where it might cause problems for her as well as for some of her peers.
“I’m not the biggest fan of having no Bruin Time, but I can see why it’s necessary,” she said. “However, it will negatively impact people who need time for make-up work, homework, and clubs. For me, this takes time away from the literary magazine Bruin Time, which will set us behind a bit. It will also make traffic much worse when leaving school.”
Odyssey of the Mind (OoTM) is one program that meets and works on a project during Bruin Times. Senior Justin Roberts is part of this year’s OoTM team, and he talked about the challenges they will face.
“I think bringing the date for Bruin Times that far out is really detrimental, just because Odyssey of the Mind this year, it’s mostly seniors on the team for the club, and we are all pretty busy for scheduling conflicts,” Roberts said. “Bruin Times are pretty much the only way to actually get together and discuss and do our problem for our club, so to take that away is basically taking away the only time we have.”
OoTM Coach Erin Beatie gave her view of the situation, emphasizing how she believes the team will overcome these challenges.
“It is a bummer that Bruin Time is delayed until Feb. 10, and it will affect the team’s during school gathering time,” she said. “However, having said that, Odyssey of the Mind is about problem solving and scheduling/planning is part of that process. Though this may cause the team additional stress, it absolutely gives the team a learning experience that is hard to replicate in a classroom setting: how to adjust to change. This is how the real world works and such a great lesson for all students to learn before being on their own.”
Other programs that primarily meet during bruin time include the previously mentioned district literary magazine, “The Reflection” and our FFA chapter’s competition teams.
— Sonora Slater contributed to this report
