<p>Our kids start at 720 and have 7 period days (no block schedules), with a 20 minute lunch around 1030. For the band kids, who have sectionals after school and then practice until 730 (supposed to be 7 but they’re never ever out on time) two nights a week, then home for dinner and homework, it’s a long day. Throw in football games on Friday nights that don’t get them home until nearly midnight, and frequent weekend rehearsals and competitions, and high school becomes all consuming. No wonder band kids date each other-- they never see anyone else.</p>
<p>And fwiw, no lockers is the norm here, as well. (PE one semester out of four years; study halls died with the dinosaurs.) With five minute passing times my kids don’t have the time to go to a locker. They don’t ever use the school bathrooms either-- no time, even if they weren’t leery of what they’d run across in them. S16 has one class at the edge of campus stuck in the middle of his day; he’s always late getting there and always late to his next class, and the teachers just know: if a class in Building 6 is involved somehow, you have to get used to lateness.</p>