Nearly a thousand students, faculty, and community members of the Princeton Public Schools district attended the Board of Education meeting held via Zoom on February 23. The meeting discussed the plan to incorporate more in-person learning into PPS and presented an amended bell schedule for the high school. 

On February 22, the BOE sent out a proposal for a new bell schedule which would extend each hour-long class period by 15 minutes and end the school day at 2:30 p.m. rather than 1:00 p.m. Many students immediately voiced outrage at this development by posting on social media and urging others to attend the BOE meeting.

At the board meeting the following evening, the administrators adjusted the schedule to retain the original 60-minute classes but with the addition of another period, for a total of five 60-minute classes per day and a 2:35 p.m. end. 

“We [will] incorporate more instructional time, but we will have a 40-minute break …The last period of the day, which is 2:35–3:21, [will be] our targeted instruction period, and [on] Thursdays, we will have our Tiger Time, [during which] students can collaborate with each other on projects [and] students can play basketball in the Old Gym,” said Jared Warren, Acting Principal of PHS.

Around 60 individuals chose to speak for an allotted two minutes during the public forum section of the meeting. 

Yash Roy ’21, a student liaison to the board, was the first to voice his thoughts. 

“Yesterday, when the administration at Princeton High School presented the [new schedule with] 75 minute periods, the student body showed up. We said, ‘This is not a good idea, we don’t support this, and we want to have a voice and a seat at the table when schedules are made going forward.’ What do we get in return? We got [a revised schedule] without any real, meaningful, discussion with students. I think that’s just disrespecting us at this point,” Roy said.

Malachi Wood, PHS French Teacher and parent with two students enrolled in Princeton Public Schools, also spoke out during the public forum. He detailed his concerns about how the new schedule will affect students who come from lower-income families. 

“The extended schedule will be an equity disaster. Going forward with this will [expand] the equity gap that already exists at PHS. The more time students spend in class, the more time they need outside of class to do the inevitably increased workload. This is doubly true for our vulnerable and challenged students,” Wood said.

Another individual from the student body also voiced their frustration. Oliver Huang ’24 compared the board’s behavior to “Ted Cruz in a winter storm,” referring to the Texas senator who took a trip to Cancún while many of his constituents were left to brave the recent Texas blizzard.

“[We] probably could have been a bit nicer,” said Huang.

In a comment about what may have caused the anger during the public forum, Huang said, “Not being heard. We kind of got ignored.”

Maya Khan ’21, the other student liaison to the board, brought up the survey conducted on behalf of the board which asked about students’ mental health and their thoughts on the current schedule. Khan and Roy noted that of the 645 PHS students who responded, 85 percent replied that they were overly stressed in the last month because of school, 72 percent agreed that the current schedule and the allotted class times were “just right,” and only one percent asked for more instructional time.

Those who spoke echoed the results of the survey and continued to voice their concerns as the night went on. Due to the growing number of individuals who still wished to participate, the board voted to extend the meeting until midnight.

“I think we need more time to listen to more people, but I do think anyone who’s on the call who wants to speak tonight, I think we need to let them speak. I want to hear them,” said board member Betsy Baglio when asked about shortening the speaking time for students and citizens to less than one minute.

Fellow board member Michele Tuck-Ponder echoed her sentiment. Tuck-Ponder served as the time-keeper for the public forum, reminding speakers of the two-minute time limit.

“Yeah, we’re going to be here late. But people want to be heard. We should forge on until we have heard from everybody,” Tuck-Ponder said.

As a result of the meeting and public forum, the board chose to delay all proposed changes pending recommendations to be made by a new committee of students and teachers created by Dr. Galasso, the superintendent. Two days after the board meeting, the weekend of March 6–7 was designated a “no-homework time zone” to promote student well-being after many students spoke about their stress levels during the forum.

Galasso was optimistic that the board and the student body could come to an agreement that benefited students and faculty alike by working together. Through an application process organized by the student liaisons, they selected a group of 15 students that would help Galasso devise a mutually beneficial schedule change.

“So far we’ve had three hours worth of meetings with students [during which] we’ve talked about the high school schedule specifically. We’ve come together on about 80 percent of what students’ concerns were,” Galasso said.

Galasso hopes that this student group can help avoid future confrontations as well and provide a foundation for future collaboration.

“I would like to think that we would begin to do this once a month. This [superintendent council] will be an opportunity, ongoing, where students will have a forum to express what they like and what they would like to see improved, and a whole host of other issues,” said Galasso.