South Side Will Start School Much Earlier Next School Year
Jacob Marbach (12)
jacob.marbach@fwcsstudents.org

February 10, 2023

High schoolers, have you been enjoying going into first period at 9:05 am? Starting next year, Fort Wayne Community Schools bell schedule will be adjusted based on feedback from many meetings and thoughts from teachers, students, and parents.

High school students will start class time from 7:20 am to 2:25 pm starting in the 23/24 school year. This was highly requested from many members of the community because of the lack of time students have after school to work. This is a drastic change from the 9:05 am to 4:10 pm change that began in 2015. 

“I think the new bell schedule will improve students' focus, it will also give them plenty of time after school to work, get experience doing an internship, and have earlier practice times for sports,” English teacher Mrs. Denise Oaks said. 

Teachers like the flow of this upcoming schedule because it keeps the kids on track and most importantly lets them have time after school to focus on their future goals. 

“With next year's bell schedule there will be less tardiness. parents that go to work earlier will have the opportunity to get their students to school now that school will start at 7:20 am,” Assistant Principal Kyle Emenhiser said.

Since many parents do not have time to drop their kids off at 9:05, Emenhiser thinks with the new bell times there will be more students on time.

“The extra time after school will be helpful, by giving me time after AMP Lab to prepare for my after school job,” Evan Fugate (12) said. 

Having PM AMP Lab and having a job after school can be overwhelming. If high schoolers get let out at 2:25 pm, they will have more time to prepare for their after school jobs and may also be able to get more working hours in.

“ I am in Dr.Daniel’s student cabinet, he gave us the time change options first and almost all of the students agreed on starting at 7:20 am,” Olivia Soto (11) said. The participants of the student cabinet shared their opinions and were the first to hear the news about the new schedule.

Overall, it is time FWCS gets a new bell schedule, we’ve had the same bell times for almost 10 years! FWCS was well overdue to make changes to their bell times, and the student, parent, and teacher feedback shows that it overall has a beneficial impact.

Here is a poll to share your opinion about the upcoming time changes! Take this quick poll!

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