The school bell schedule could be a bit different than the usual for the 2016-17 school year, as the campus administration is currently discussing the possibility of having a short activity period that would allow students to go to tutorials or just hang out in designated areas.

“We’re looking at it for next year,” principal Scott Warstler said. “If we do, it’ll be at the end of first period. So it’ll be between first and second period, every class would be shortened five minutes on those days, and then we’ll just have a thirty minute block between first and second period for this to occur.”

Students could do a variety of things during this period, depending on their own activities.

“You’ll have your clubs and organizations,” Warstler said. “We’ll have to set a schedule that on certain days of the week or certain days of the month that StuCo meets, that Key Club meets, that all your different clubs and organizations can meet so that we know we can just post that for students. Library will be open for a silent read. So no talking, just to go to read. Cafeteria will be open for the ability of students to kind of just hang out. Gym will be open not to play but to set up the stands and just chill. Put music on, just relax. And then of course, we would have tutorials going on all over the building in different classrooms based on the day of the week that it is. So students would be scattered all over the building, kind of like they are in the mornings before school starts.”

Some campuses, like Independence, already have the activity period as a part of their daily schedule and social studies department head Jeff Crowe got a firsthand look.

“I would peek my head in and I would see kids getting help from teachers in a one-on-one basis,” Crowe said. “There’d be some kids in classrooms sitting and just doing work. There were a lot of kids in the cafeteria, not quite as many in the gym, but then the library was also pretty full. The vibe that I got from the campus was that it was just really relaxed, and laid back and it was just a nice little break in the day for the kids to get some help, get caught up.”

The schedule and purpose for the activity period wouldn’t be the same every day.

“The other benefit that Independence has with that is that really it’s just Monday through Thursday that they do that kind of model,” Crowe said. “But then on the Fridays, like we have Redhawk Rant, they would always do that on Fridays or if there was a fire drill, they’d do it on the Fridays. Or if there is a pep rally, they’d do that on Friday. Counselors coming to talk to the kids. Friday would kind of be like that administrative day, where all the required things that you have to do, you could do that.”

Beyond what he saw as a teacher, Crowe also sees the benefits as a parent.

“My son goes to Clark Middle School, and they have that built into their day now, which is new as well,” Crowe said. “It’s called Cougar Den. It’s like a thirty minute time of the day where he can go in and get help, or individual tutoring or just basically get caught up on his homework. And he’ll come home with a lot of his work done already.”

One of the main ideas behind the activity period is to help students who have busy schedules.

“What we’re focusing on is more of an opportunity for some remediation with students who may be struggling in a classroom, you have an extra thirty minutes a day to go into a classroom to get some extra help in tutorials-that helps our students who maybe ride the bus and can’t get here in time for morning or after school tutorials,” Warstler said. “It also helps band and athletics and all those different folks who can’t get here for tutorials because of their schedules.”

Although the block is an opportunity for academics, it’s also one for students who need some downtime.

“If you’re taking care of your business, you’re doing well academically, it’s thirty minutes in the day that you can go sit in the gym up in the stands, put some headphones on, and just chill,” Warstler said. “Maybe an opportunity for a group of students into the library and read a book for thirty minutes just as a way to get away from how difficult school can be for so many of our students because there’s so much pressure and so many of our students are taking so many high level courses-it’s just a break in the middle of the day.”

Some students believe the activity period would be valuable.

“I think it is a good idea because a lot of students have a lot of homework and need extra time to work on it,” freshman Melody Tavallaee said. “I would catch up on homework and study more for tests and stuff.”

However, the activity period may affect students from another campus.

“The other consideration that we have to keep in mind is that whatever we do will impact our sister campus, Centennial, because we share teachers and classes and kids are constantly running a bus schedule for buses back and forth from Centennial to Liberty,” Crowe said. “For example, I teach AP European History and it’s not offered over at Centennial. So I get about twelve or fifteen kids coming over here every day. If we had an activity schedule, every day like Independence does, that would impact when our classes began, when they end, so we would have to be kind of doing the same thing that our sister campus is doing.”

Ultimately, the faculty wants to observe the atmosphere of other schools before making a final decision.

“Probably by mid to late April we will have a pretty definitive answer as to whether or not we’re going to move forward with this for next year or that we think, we want to wait,” Warstler said. “There are a couple other schools that are doing it right now and we kind of want to maybe even give them a year or two to get through it and see kind of what have been their pitfalls, what have been some of the struggles they’ve had, and kind of learn from them before we dive into it. So right now it’s on the drawing board, it’s something that we sit and talk about, but we’re not sure yet.”