When the schedule rumors started last year, questions came up immediately. Will this help or hurt my application come college season? Will this help students retain? Does this mean no homework on Wednesdays? As October draws near, Malvern Prep is in the thick of this new schedule change.
Identifying alumni, now teachers, as interviewees allowed us to get insight from people who attended Malvern and have seen the different schedules. 9th Grade Student Academy Leader and Social Studies Teacher, Mr. Jeffrey Carroll ‘02 touches on how his teaching style is impacted by the schedule.
“I have two [sections] now, and one [section] in my second term. So now I’m going to have to frontload one section and backload the other two sections. So that’s been tricky,” Carroll said.
Mr. Carroll saw the merit in how it kept students of both intensive and non-intensive in his classroom more frequently.
“Kids can come back to social studies after a while and just pick up reading. Whereas with math and language, I think practice is going to be more important,” Carroll said.
We also identified math teacher and alumnus, Mr. Joe Basiura for our interviews as well. It is Basiura’s second year teaching at Malvern and he got to experience both old and new schedules as both a teacher and student-athlete.
“I like this[new] schedule more because there’s less classes per day. You can put more of your focus into certain classes”.
“[The new schedule] has just been a little different, not necessarily harder, or easier, just different,” Basiura said.
As a math teacher he also affirmed the point Mr. Carroll made earlier and sees these new Wednesdays as an opportunity to give his non-intensive kids the practice they need.
“ A lot of the kids in my class just need review… and we will already have reviewed with them. And then we can just start the new topics,” Basiura said.
After interviewing the teachers, we also interviewed Mike Ortlieb 25’. Mike is a two-sport athlete who takes a very rigorous course load and will be attending Duke University in the fall of 25’. In our interview with Mike, we asked him what his initial thoughts were on the new schedule. His answer started off in favor of it.
“It creates a balance in the week and a balance between my classes…so I’m not focused on all at one time,” Ortlieb said.
Then he countered it with a negative.
“It can be stressful at times having to juggle six or seven classes a term instead of what we were used to in four,” Ortlieb said.
A pro that Mike sees in this schedule is that he is able to have a lighter day in the middle of the week, not having any homework due.
“You can take Wednesday a little lighter… So that’s like a little break in my schedule,” Ortlieb said.
He then countered it with a con of the stress of having three to four more classes a week.
“You have to focus on six to seven classes in your week, rather than three to four.”
After gauging the community all feedback was ultimately positive. The best part about this new schedule was it showed us that you could put Malvern on a one class per day schedule and it would still be the place we love coming to school everyday.
