The Portsmouth School Board recently approved a later start time for Portsmouth High School. The high school will start at 8:25am, rather than the current start time of 7:30am. Students will be released at 3:25pm rather than 2:30pm. The reasoning behind the later start time is mostly due to studies done showing that it is hard for teens to wake up as early as they do.

Portsmouth High School Student, Alex Grobe weighed in on the change, “I am glad I’m not here for the schedule change next year. I think it will make jobs and sports complicated. I also think it will take time to get used to the new schedule.”

The new schedule will include a TASC block for everyone. The TASC time will give students a time to talk with teachers, work on extended learning, get extra help, or do classwork that needs to be done.

Another change involves first block. The old schedule had a ‘skinny’ block. This meant that there would be two 45-minute classes for first block, then block two, lunch, then blocks three and four.

With the new schedule, if there is a ‘skinny’ course, it will be for 81 minutes, alternating every other day, rather than the 45 minutes daily. There will be an A and B rotation. The regular classes meet on both A and B days and are not affected by the rotation.

This new schedule will be in place for the 2017-2018 school year.