Last year, we marked a change in the class schedule, introducing the “WIN” schedule. This schedule messed with the Lunch and Flex times we were used to. With this change, Hempfield High School went from grade-level lunches to lunches where upper-classmen and under-classmen ate together. The student body met this change with anger and confusion, as we did not understand why this change happened. Well, today, I can say that I have some information that should clear up all your confusion. I interviewed the HHS Principal, Dr. Brossman, on the Flex and lunch changes on Friday. Stick with me as I delve behind the scenes of this administrative change. 

I began this interview by asking what prompted the introduction of the WIN schedule. Brossman goes on to explain that the size of the classes played a big role in the change. For example, last year’s freshman class, (current sophomore class), was at 623 students. This means that 623 students would’ve been forced into a cafeteria that wasn’t made to hold 600 students, let alone 623 students. Additionally, due to staffing issues, it would have been difficult to compensate for that number of students. However, Brossman states, “Even with our lunches now hovering just under 500, there have been complaints from students about it taking too long to get through the lunch lines due to not enough staff.” The problem is that last year’s senior class only had 150 students at lunch due to most seniors taking the senior option. Introducing the new lunches allowed the administration to spread all the grades between four lunch periods, keeping them somewhere between 450 and 500 students.

The other problem was that with the old schedule of 5 periods in a day, the freshmen and the sophomores would eat lunch during the third period of the school day, and the juniors and seniors would eat during the fourth period. This meant that no freshmen or sophomores took classes in the third period because the sophomores had Flex while the freshmen had lunch, and vice versa. This led to an uneven amount of upperclassmen and underclassmen in certain electives. This new WIN schedule allows students to see all of their teachers during Flex, or WIN, due to what was the Flex period being moved to the end of the day, making all teachers available to their students. The student body has positively remarked on this aspect, as we students appreciate the ability to connect with our teachers outside of our normal classes.

Next, I asked Dr. Brossman if he thought the change in the schedule was good for the school environment. To summarize his response, he believes, as do I, that upperclassmen, such as myself, have the ability to influence underclassmen. He realizes there were few opportunities for the upperclassmen to be good examples for the underclassmen with the grade-level lunches. This being said, he does understand that with the grade-level lunches, students were guaranteed that they would see their classmates and friends every day. However, as is true in many cases, something has to give, and in this case, that guarantee was the thing that had to go. I agree with Brossman that this schedule has been working out well for us and that there is little reason to revert to a previous schedule. 

While student schedules and opinions are important, the schedule must also work for the teachers and honor their contract. I then asked a question I was curious about, “How does our school’s schedule compare to others?” I learned that we were pretty similar to other schools with our block scheduling, however, some schools do not run on block schedules: Warwick and Manheim Township to name a couple. It is important to note that for block schedules to work, the periods must be around eighty minutes, which is close to what we are doing. I then asked if there was any school in particular that the administration heavily based their choices on, and Brossman responded with “Central York High School,” which is similar to Hempfield’s size, demographic, and educational programming. The notion of the ‘WIN’ period was introduced by Mrs. Deisley, the curriculum coordinator, so that students could spend their Flex period with their teachers. He states, “Having the WIN cycle has been the greatest advantage to the new schedule.” He explains that being able to spend WIN with teachers or students where there are relationships between both is better than randomly assigning students to teachers for Flex. Next, I asked him if we would have had to make this change if the size of our school was smaller. “Size provides a catch,” Brossman explains, “because smaller schools tend to have smaller facilities, whereas Hempfield is a big school structure”. He admits, however, that if the size had been smaller, they may not have pursued this action the way they did.

 Moving the Flex or WIN period to the end of the day prevented student-athletes or students with early dismissals from losing class time. Instead, they missed WIN. Dr. Brossman was on the committee that chose to switch to the block schedule and realized that many other schools did their lunches at the end of the day. We did not do Flex at the end of the day because they could not figure out how to make all the lunches work the way they do now. Brossman remembers a Flex schedule in the middle of the day, but the lunches were mixed, and it was the luck of the draw with what lunch you got assigned. 

While Hempfield has always been one of the biggest schools in the county, Brossman states that we are currently smaller than we were when he first worked here. Our numbers recently have been between 2,200 and 2,300, while we were up around 2,400 students fifteen years ago. Our current sophomore class is the biggest, with 601 students, and the freshman class is just behind at 546. The juniors number in at 556, and the seniors at 550, for a combined total of about 2,250 students. A recent feasibility study projected us to push some 2,700 students in the next five years, which may explain rumors of expanding the Hempfield campus.

I hope that this article was able to clear up and inform you of the reasons behind this change. An inside look can help you understand why the change was necessary and allow you to see its positives. Dr. Brossman does a lot for Hempfield High School, and I was happy to get his thoughts and opinions on this topic.