Students can say goodbye to waking up before 7 a.m. with the removal of A period next school year.

 The San Ramon Valley Unified School District reviewed possible new bell schedules for the 2022-2023 school year that replace A period with a seventh period, now called B period, that ends at 3:41 p.m. every day except Wednesday for Cal High students. The new schedule was emailed to students and parents Wednesday evening.

The change resulted from the 2019 Senate Bill 328, which prevents class time before 8:30 a.m from counting towards required instructional minutes. This change will be implemented no later than June 1, though the end of the current school year is June 2. 

SB 328 has forced Cal to revise its schedule and replace the optional A period with a seventh period, or B period, class that begins at 2:40 p.m., according to the email students and parents received. B period is 61 minutes long, compared to 59 minutes for A period this year.

Cal High sophomore Izzy Der said she is more inclined to take seven classes now that A period has been removed from its 7:30 a.m. time slot.

“I’d rather stay at school later [than] come to school earlier,” Der said.

Der believes that having more time in the morning will be beneficial to students.

“Some people are super busy in the morning and stuff, compared to after school,” Der said.

Other changes to next year’ schedule include classes increasing five minutes to 105 minutes on every day but Wednesdays, which has 95-minute long classes now instead of 90.

Brunch and lunch will each be five minutes shorter next year, with the 10-minute brunch coming after first and second periods every day at 10:05. Lunch will be 30 minutes instead of 35 next year.

With brunch now coming after first and second periods, a 30-minute tutorial period is scheduled after third and fourth periods every day except Wednesdays. Tutorial is 40 minutes long this year.

Jon Campopiano, the district’s executive director of secondary education, said the district was in a tough situation because it had to try to create a schedule that works around jobs, sports and other extra-curricular activities. 

“[I am] real hopeful it’s going to be a smooth process,” Campopiano said.

Cal geometry teacher Surbhi Jain has been teaching A period for three years and is sad to see it go.

“I have seen more productivity in A period,” Jain said. “Because I enjoy teaching A period, I’ll continue to do that in seventh period.”

Jain feels A period plays a big role in connecting and establishing relationships with her students since they meet four days a week.

She is hopeful this will happen with seventh period classes, which is expected to meet every day but Wednesday, just like A period. Cal’s other periods follow the block schedule and meet every other day. 

The regular Wednesday late start is also being removed. Wednesday school days on the new schedule will start at 8:30 a.m. and end at 1:45 p.m., allowing teachers to now meet after school. There will still be no tutorial on Wednesdays.

“I think [the new schedule] definitely puts a bump in the road for our club, especially because most of our club officers don’t plan to take a seventh period, so I struggle to see how we could schedule our meetings around that,” said junior Ammar Wahab, whose Toastmasters Gavel Club meets after school every other Thursday. “I wouldn’t want to stay an extra two hours at school for a meeting.” 

After school sports will also not be able to start until 4 p.m,. said Ken Mintz, president of the district’s Board of Education. He said this rule would apply to all districts. 

Cal athletic director Chris Declercq, said some sports will be directly affected.

“If [some sports] don’t have light they can’t practice,” Declercq said. “Softball, baseball, tennis, golf.” 

Since the end of the school would get pushed back for those enrolled in seventh period, students who have to leave early for games may miss more class time as a result of the schedule change.

“Maybe we [will] move more games to Saturday,” Declercq said.

All practices will most likely start later and end later. Junior Emily Xu, who is in the after school marching band color guard, dislikes the later start.

The marching band practices run after the football team’s practice ends, so the schedule will force them to wait even longer after school to start their practice. 

“With the new schedule, [practice] could be possibly pushed back to maybe 10 p.m.,” Xu said. “Sports would have to be pushed back, which could interfere with jobs and people with internships and clubs and other stuff after school.”

The reason classes starting before 8:30 a.m. is ending is because of  the sleep schedule of students, according to the Senate bill. High school students need more sleep and starting school later should help.

“I think it’s doing the opposite because being released from school later means a lot of the things we would usually do would be pushed back later, meaning that we just probably end up sleeping later,” Xu said.

Math teacher Bob Allen, who has been collaborating with the district to construct a schedule that follows the guidelines as part of the district bell schedule committee, thinks changing the schedule will not change student sleep patterns.

Instead, Allen wants to have a larger discussion pertaining to students and classes. He believes students are overexerting themselves because of a variety of reasons, which ultimately leads to lack of sleep. 

“There needs to be a larger discussion of what makes a successful student in San Ramon, SRVUSD,” Allen said.

Allen said the new schedule has been in the works since 2019. A committee of staff has been formed at each school to brainstorm possible schedules.

The start of the pandemic threw a wrench in a process that would normally would have taken much less time. 

“There are a lot of critiques about the process,” Allen said. “If the pandemic wasn’t here I think things would have gone a lot smoother.”

The district is constantly gaining new information and adjusting as needed, Campopiano said. He does not know when the district’s new schedule will be finalized and made public.