Due to extra time for morning announcements and in the interest of keeping students at school, a new bell schedule has been put in place for the second trimester at City High.

“We shifted advisory back to after 5th hour, which is how it always used to be for several years,” Principal John Bacon said.

During the first trimester of this year, students were seen leaving school during advisory because they had sixth period open, and Mr. Bacon wanted to see more people using advisory for its original purpose.

“We do think advisory is important because it’s a chance to get homework done and it’s a chance to connect with teachers,” Bacon said.

Sophie Stumbo ‘23, however, does not love these changes made to the schedule for this trimester.

“I prefer advisory after sixth period because the class I have sixth period only has 10 students; it’s pretty great to have a small advisory class,” Stumbo said. “People who do have seventh open I know are really annoyed because we can’t go home early.”

Mr. Bacon sees more pros than cons when having advisory earlier in the day.

“When a bunch of kids get to stand up and leave because they have seventh open, it makes it more challenging to the kids that have to stay,” Bacon said.

In addition to moving advisory time to after fifth, the announcements also got moved to the start of 1st period along with the Pledge of Allegiance. Bacon did not want the daily announcements to interrupt the transition to advisory, and he also did not want them to cut into instructional time at the beginning of 1st period.

“I’ve gotten some feedback of concern about moving announcements. I’ve had a few students say that they’re not here yet first hour or they participate in a regional academy class at Kirkwood regional academy in the morning, and so they don’t hear announcements,” Bacon said.

In response to this, daily announcements are now posted in Infinite Campus as well.

Another change that took place for 2nd trimester is new sounds for the two-minute bell and the bell that releases students for advisory. The advisory bell sound was changed so that students would not want to immediately stand up and leave.

“Sometimes like when the bell rings we’re so conditioned to just respond. Everybody stands up like it’s time to go,” Bacon said.

The new sounds weren’t very popular with some students.

“I really do not like them every time I hear it. It’s just very odd and weird,” Stumbo said.

Mr. Bacon says that things with the bells and schedule are always subject to change, but he hopes for the new schedule to stay this way for the remainder of 2nd trimester before reevaluating.

“Certainly my hope would be we stay this way throughout the trimester and evaluate how things are going,” Bacon said.