Over the years, the Carlmont administration has made changes to scheduling to help student-athletes make up the work they miss for sports.
“You teach an academic class during sixth period and students in some sports will miss 40 percent of the week. It’s a lot to make up in any academic subject, and it is hard to do all that on your own,” said Robert Tsuchiyama, the head of the math department.
When Carlmont switched to a later start back in the 2016-2017 school year, the administration recognized the effect this could have on student-athletes. They sent Patrick Smith, the athletic director, and Grant Steunenberg, the administrative vice-principal, to petition the league for later start times for athletics.
“We also talked to coaches to make sure that they were starting at an appropriate time and were not going too long in the evenings,” Principal Ralph Crame said.
Governance council, a council that allows students, faculty, and parents to work towards the success of the Carlmont community, put together a flyer that provides tips and steps for student-athletes to look to when they miss class due to athletics.
With a new bell schedule being implemented next year, student-athletes may be concerned about missing class, especially because of the block periods.
However, the bell schedule will include flex time, a time for students to do homework and work with their teachers to make up missed work.
“Flex time is something that we hope will help when students are out,” Crame said.
In addition to scheduling that will hopefully relieve some of the stress of student-athletes, Carlmont has set priorities regarding school and sports conflicts.
“If there is a conflict between an academic activity and an athletic practice, the academic activity takes precedence over the athletic activity. If it’s a CCS [Central Coast Section] event, we ask teachers that might have things that conflict to make sure that students have the opportunity to make up what they missed,” Crame said.
Although counselors might have offered a zero through fifth period schedule option to students during counselor meetings, it was later clarified that this is not an option for next year. Student-athletes will continue to go to school first through sixth period.
Though they will still miss some of their sixth period class, the new block schedule and flex time will hopefully be beneficial to student-athletes.
