New Student Schedule for 2022-23 School Year

You may remember the acronym ROYGBIV to identify the color order of a rainbow and now Overlake students will be using this to remember what day they have for school. Starting this school year, students will be using a seven-day rotating class schedule, starting with red day and going through the rainbow until violet day before rotating back to red.

All students, both Middle and Upper School, will use the same schedule with all class blocks the same length of time. This is different than past student schedules and intentional in design. “It allows for homework to be more meaningful because they're not zipping through it because they only had four classes, and three of those four won't even meet the next day,” explains Lisa Orenstein, faculty member and part of the committee that designed the new schedule.

Standardizing the class length and lessening the number of blocks also eliminates the number of transitions students and faculty experience, making a more predictable rhythm. “Teachers and students thrive when they know what’s happening,” says Orenstein.

The student schedule committee spent all of last school year looking at various schedule models. The new schedule needed to meet several goals, such as; ensuring enough academic contact time; time in the day for classes, advisory, clubs, affinity spaces and other gatherings; and having one late start day each week.

The new schedule hits all those goals, including each Wednesday students beginning their day at 9:30am. For many students and families this start time will be a welcome relief in a usual busy week. While Wednesday’s will allow for a slower pace, students will still get a full academic day.

For some families, we realize this schedule change may create hardships in regard to childcare. We will be offering families who need support in the mornings a place to drop off their student at 8:00am on Wednesdays where we will provide a study hall. Bus service will run 80 minutes later for Wednesday arrivals. 

As in past years, breakfast will be available in the Campus Center from 7-10 am each day. 

The academic school day ends for both Middle School and Upper School students at 2:40pm each day. For Upper School students, office hours are held from 2:40pm until 3:15pm. 

Attached is the new daily schedule