Here we go again.

For the third time in four years, the Greeley West faculty has changed the way homeroom happens. 

As the school schedule starts to become more comfortable for the students, they are becoming more familiar with the dynamics of homeroom. Homeroom is held on Thursdays and Fridays for 35 minutes. Some students appreciate the new schedule, but others preferred last year’s homeroom tied to lunch, which they say provided more consistent time to do school work. 

This year’s homeroom happenings have been moved to the afternoons on Thursdays and Fridays. On Thursdays homeroom,  students go through lessons, led by their teachers, that the homeroom committee has pre-planned for them. Friday is a “travel day” where the students can  roam  around the school and talk with teachers as needed, or use the period as a study hall. Students must see the teacher they are traveling to and get a pass signed in advance of homeroom. 

Lessons are varied by grade level. Seniors will focus on post-secondary options while freshmen learn about success in school. 

The issue seems to be implementing homeroom into the new 8-period schedule, which has disrupted the timeliness of student’s schedules. Every class period starts and ends at a different time every day of the school week to get homeroom into a time period. 

Senior Vanessa Mayeda does not seem to mind the homeroom schedules. “I think the homeroom is necessary because it gives us more time to work on things for other classes that we might not be able to finish otherwise,” Mayeda said.  “But it kind of sucks, too, because they’re not very long.” 

Students said they do not feel that West needs any other homeroom periods, reacting to previous years’ policies.  Last year the homeroom periods were a full period – an hour and a half – and counted as a study hall. The year prior, before Covid, homeroom was on the two block days of the week and was 40 minutes long. Now things have changed, again.

In this homeroom system, students will have less time to make up classwork during a homeroom period. With the eighth class added this year, that time could come in handy, particularly for students in AP classes and who are involved in extra-curricular activities.  Senior Bohden Suntych falls into that category.   “It doesn’t really count as a study hall since there is usually something to do, most times, when we go to homeroom. But it probably won’t affect me that much since I have an off block,” Suntych said.