With RSD switching to a quarter system rather than the traditional semester system, the Messenger asked students and staff: What are your thoughts on the new quarter system? What are some perks or problems you’ve encountered?

“I personally am not extremely fond of the quarter system since there seems to be a lot of stress that comes along with it. Plus, I don’t like how the workload is essentially doubled because of this system. It doesn’t help that I tend to procrastinate because I get overwhelmed by the work. I think that I would rather have all seven classes at once so the workloads for each would be way more balanced, but I like the condensed curriculum better,” Christopher Songco, freshman, said.

“I don’t like the quarter system because I feel like all my teachers are rushing to cram all the content into one quarter. On top of that, it’s hard to keep up with all my work plus cross country. I feel like I have to either stay up really late to finish everything or wake up really early. I don’t ever feel like I have any free time. I wish we had started off with only three classes because we had taken such a long break from learning, and I think it would’ve been a better transition to normal school. I don’t feel like I am really learning anything,” Isabella Wrisberg, sophomore, said.

“I like the decreased workload that gives us more free time to do things that we enjoy, but I don’t like the fact that there is a high probability of loss of retention of information because of the large gaps in learning which can be problematic especially for AP exams. That being said, I think that the quarter system is best for online learning as seven classes can become very burdensome,” Sujay Vadderaju, junior, said.

“Personally, I’m okay with the quarter system, and I think it was the best solution to online learning. I like that I don’t have to be sitting at my desk for seven hours and trying to keep track of all seven classes at the same time. The best part is the late start on Mondays because I have time to get things done in the morning. Usually I wake up like 5 to 10 minutes before class starts, but on Mondays I usually have an hour or two to work. The only issue I have is that I don’t really like how everything is faster paced, but I understand why it has to be that way,” Jessica Zhang, senior, said.

“The hardest part is that everything happens so fast with this new system. So, it’s challenging for students to keep up and hard for teachers to stay on top of the grading. I feel like there just aren’t any breaks or downtime. Rushing is never a good way to learn, and I feel that’s what we are doing. For AP students, they simply won’t have enough time to be properly prepared for the exams, unless they do a lot of work on their own. It’s just not a good way for kids to learn,” Scott Szevery, social studies teacher, said.

“My biggest concern is that, because of the shortened timespan, teachers are limited in how deep into their course concepts they can dive with students, which can limit how much a student gets out of a class. This might lead to some students not doing as well as they would in a normal semester, or to a lack of interest in or appreciation for the relevance of course concepts in the real world. I do appreciate how the quarter system allows students and teachers to focus their attention on a smaller number of classes at once. This focus helps me in my planning and giving feedback because I can devote more of my attention on the needs of this smaller group,” Raymond Holmes, LA teacher, said.