On Tuesdays and Wednesdays each week, Haddonfield Memorial High School has block days. The school district started this back in the 2021-22 school year. Block days are school days split into four classes with 81 minutes for each class and an hour-long lunch. Block days were put in place to give students more time to learn and less homework. Having eight classes every day, five days a week, can be a stressful situation and can lead to students not catching up on their work and studying. It is extremely helpful to have block days so students can have only four classes of homework rather than eight. Though, due to the longer periods, the majority of the time teachers give out more complex assignments that require more time to finish, which defeats the purpose of less homework. 

Ways to fix the problems of the lengthy classes and long assignments are to require at least a 10-minute break in every class and to set up a rubric for the complexity of certain assignments. It would be a rubric that teachers have to follow in order to be approved for the assignment. A lot of students feel that the length of block day classes causes them to lose their focus after a certain amount of time, defeating the purpose of being able to learn more in an 81-minute class. Which is why required, longer breaks are an important solution. A way to get the opinion of students is to send out a Google Form to see what they think about the solutions and send the results to the administration. 

I know that many students enjoy block days, especially if they have late arrival or early dismissal. It can be extremely beneficial to have even just an hour more or time. But I am also aware of the fact that students dislike certain aspects of block days as well. Juniors Sophia Pinero and Kassidy Grega share their struggles with block days. “After a while, everyone loses their patience,” says Sophia. “Yeah, it’s hard to concentrate for so long on one subject. Some teachers will just talk straight through the block period,” says Kassidy. Breaks can benefit the students in many positive ways with regard to their concentration, grades, and energy to put into their classes. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with the structure of block days, but that does not mean that students won’t benefit from change. With extracurricular activities and outside life, the extensive assignments and lack of breaks are negative effects on the students, which is why they should be changed.