Changes this Year at SHS

When students return to Seneca High School (SHS) on Thursday for the first day of a new academic year, they will experience a few changes. Class schedules are different this year, tells SHS Guidance Director and Assistant Athletic Director Karen Trammell. “We actually have a new schedule in place this year. Our schools have been AB schedules for probably 20 plus years and we have all now moved to what we call a daily schedule, which is a mix of some AB classes still meaning they meet every other day and now we have some block classes, which means they meet every day for a semester. At SHS most of our core classes, English, Math, Science, Social Studies and Language, will meet on a block schedule and most of our electives meet on the AB schedule.” There are also new start and dismissal times, adds Trammell. “We do have a new staggered start schedule here in the district this year. Several reasons for that. There is research that proves that teenagers do better the later you start and they can get better rest. It also helps with the bus routes, we always have a shortage of bus drivers in the district, so a lot of bus drivers will be able to do double routes. But at the high school level, school will now start at 8:45am, which is 45 minutes later and we will dismiss at 3:45pm, which is only 30 minutes later. So, that 15 minutes that we are loosing in there we’ve kind of cut off some transition time between classes, we’ve not lost any instructional time in doing so.” To learn more about the start of school in the School District of Oconee County, visit www.oconee.k12.sc.us.