When UPrep introduced the new schedule for the 2026-27 school year last fall, it caused outrage within the community. Now that people have submitted course requests with the benefit of hindsight, certain students have changed their opinion about the new schedule, while others remain in strong opposition.
The upcoming school year brings a seventh class to students’ schedules, along with a flex period every three days. School days will have five classes, each lasting 60 minutes, and as a result of the loss of the spring intensive among other reasons, there are also classes being added and removed from UPrep’s course list.
Fine arts department chair Tim Blok is aiming to make classes more available for students to take. The FA graduation requirement used to necessitate two different types of FA credits, but that requirement has been eliminated.
“I think the idea is that it’s going to allow students to follow the things that they really want to do. So, for example, in visual arts, we will have one through four level classes, and so a student is able to take all four levels of something and fulfill their graduation requirement instead of, you know, essentially forcing somebody to do something that maybe they’re not as excited about,” Blok said.
Sophomore Beckett Nelson thinks the shorter class periods will negatively impact how in-class time is used.
“In a lot of classes, there is an extra 10 minutes [that] tend to be work time, where you can talk to the teacher to get help for answers, and I feel like the lessons might be the same length, but that time will disappear,” Nelson said.
P.E. department chair Kayla Robertson understands that this may be a problem for her classes, but she is more optimistic.
“I think the 60-minute classes will be somewhat of a challenge for P.E., mainly because we’ve used those 10 minutes to help them change and get ready for class,” Robertson said. “So although our classes have been like 60 minutes, now we’re gonna have to get a little bit more creative.”
Sophomore Ethan Francis also dislikes the loss of an intensive, but he understands why the school is doing it.
“Change is necessary, and we’re gonna get used to it one way or another,” Francis said.
Robertson foresees the changes affecting some of the P.E. courses moving into the winter intensive, which are affected by weather.
“I think the experiences in the spring are very different than in the winter, right?” Robertson said. “So this last intensive, we’re really going to soak up the sunshine, if you will.”
Robertson has been working to see how these classes will work in the winter and how they may need to adapt.
“The swimming and water safety class, we tested it out this winter, actually, to see how it would go, and it went really well,” Robertson said. “But there’s more pool time. In the spring, we’re out at the lake more often, and we do like a swim, stand-up, paddle board relay, and so it’s just a little bit different experience but still focused on the curriculum goals.”
Ninth grader Xander Koss believes the disappearance of the spring intensive will be a valuable tradeoff.
“True, you lose an intensive in exchange for two semester courses,” Koss said. “But especially with a lot of intensives being moved to semester courses and there being a lot more semester courses in general, one could say that the semester courses are a lot more impactful.”
Ninth grader Oliver Simpson thinks that once the next school year starts, people will be less negative about the new schedule.
“I think as we get used to the new schedule, people will start kind of realizing it’s not that bad of a thing,” Simpson said.
According to a survey by Puma Press reporters, the average respondent’s feelings towards the new schedule have become more positive since the changes were originally announced.
“I think it’s always hard managing a big change like this, because I think a lot of people have a lot of feelings about it and want to know what’s going on,” Blok said. “Sometimes you just have to like, be patient and wait and see.”
Read the first Puma Press article on the schedule change, written in October by Manola Rubiralta and Sammy Reichert:
