After many months of occasional mumbles and tangential teacher asides, Westford Academy has finally revealed its plans for a new, improved schedule. This schedule is meticulously designed to decrease overall stress in the Westford Academy population. According to our friends at the Ghostwriter,
This proposed schedule will be quite similar to the current one, but there will a few differences.
For instance, the school day would be extended by ten minutes, rather than the day ending at 1:55, it would end at 2:05. There would also be five minutes for students to get from class to class, along with a ten minute break after the second block of the day.
Since we, the students of Westford Academy, know nothing about our own stress, we’ve invited educational specialist Professor Dean F. Studence to contribute his expert knowledge on the matter. “Studies have shown that the majority of high school students’ stress comes from the short time in which students are expected to travel between classes,” says Prof. Studence. “These unrealistic expectations of incredible haste put a tremendous burden on young minds, and the psychological pressure can often be crushingly unbearable.”
“We want to emphasize that student stress doesn’t come from Westford Academy’s ridiculous amounts of homework, intentional grade deflation, and utter disregard for students’ sleep and mental health needs,” explained administration. “Fortunately, we think we’ve found the true issue. We walked around the school, saw halls full of students crying, and realized how terrible it was that they didn’t even have time to finish crying about one class before going to the next. With the added minute between classes and extra ten minutes after second block, crying is finally being integrated into its proper place in the community.”
“Honestly, this is the best decision Westford Academy has ever made in my high school career,” says an anonymous sophomore. “I’m glad they decided to do as little as possible to improve student lives; after all, change is bad, right?”
Other schedule changes considered to reduce student stress included extending the lunch period from 22 minutes to 23 minutes, ringing the late bell 30 seconds later, and adding an additional semester of mandatory gym. These options were later rejected, after administration realized they may interfere with Westford Academy’s cutthroat competitive culture and sports schedule.
“I was outraged when I heard rumors that they might add a mandatory free block or something,” another student chimed in. “Just imagine how much chaos that would cause. What would they even expect us to do? Homework? Projects? That would just cut into the time I spend at 2 AM on the verge of a panic attack desperately trying to finish my homework.”
Already, rumors of an extra thirty seconds of announcements and kiosks selling tissues are circulating amongst the student body. Administration has encouraged teachers to assign additional homework to compensate for the 40 seconds of lost class time.
