MSJ adopts new bell schedule with no Advisory and minimum days

By Opinion Editor Vikram Mahajan, Graphics Editor Emily Zhang, and Staff Writer Lucas Zhang

When MSJ students walked onto campus this August, they were met with several major changes to their daily school routines, from the elimination of Advisory days to an earlier end time to the school day.  

This year’s new schedule no longer includes the  weekly Advisory period or minimum days, has shorter assembly lunch periods, and now ends at 3:11 p.m. instead of 3:19 p.m. last year. The removal of all minimum days, which have been kept in other FUSD schools’ schedules, also means that final exam days, which used to be minimum days with blocks for two classes per day, are now full days with blocks for three classes per day. All extended lunch periods, including on Homecoming performance days, are 45 minutes long, and all assemblies are now 45-55 minutes long instead of more than one hour.

Advisory

The removal of Advisory was one of the most controversial changes to the bell schedule. In April 2025, the administration gave teachers options for bell schedules to vote on, each affecting Advisory and read periods in different ways. It was removed largely due to teacher sentiment that  students were not using the weekly period for its intended purpose. According to Principal Amy Perez, 74% of MSJ teachers voted against keeping Advisory days. “We tried having Advisory periods to lower student stress, but stress levels actually continued to increase despite the change,” FUDTA Representative and Science Teacher Lane Melcic said.

Advisory was removed despite student backlash against the decision. In April, when the vote was taking place, Senior Ashwin Vaidyanathan created the @msjstudentrightsgroup Instagram page and started a Change.org petition to protest the changes and lack of student input. For many students, Advisory was a time to unwind, do homework, or make up missed tests.. “Usually, Advisory is just a chill time every week if I’m getting too stressed out, need to take a break, catch up on some homework, or, even take tests,” Junior Roshan Annamalai said.

Minimum days

Staff and administration made the decision to remove minimum days because of district-wide threats to teachers’ paychecks and conflicts with Regional Occupation Program (ROP) schedules. “The removal of minimum days was a response to the school board, because they were threatening to force teachers to work for free on minimum days,” Melcic said. According to Melcic, the FUSD school board would require teachers to stay on campus until the end of a regular school day on minimum days. This would mean teachers would stay in school for several unpaid hours, even though those extra work hours were already accounted for across the rest of the school year. Accordingly, MSJ teachers opted to remove minimum days from the calendar altogether. “We said we’re not going to work for free,” Melcic said.

The decision to remove minimum days was also influenced by schedule conflicts with ROP courses, career-training courses available to upperclassmen. ROP courses operate on the same schedule every day and are located near Kennedy High School, meaning ROP students would miss significant chunks of class on minimum days. Despite the district-wide conflicts with the school board and ROP schedules, other schools like American and Kennedy High School have retained minimum days in their schedule for this year. The removal of minimum days also modified MSJ’s final exam schedule, which originally consisted of three minimum days. According to Melcic, in addition to the removal of minimum days, another reason teachers voted to change the finals schedule is because the last day of the 2025-26 school year falls on a Tuesday, which would spread final exams over two separate weeks. For many teachers, the gap of a weekend could easily jeopardize their tests’ integrity, as students could easily share answers with later periods. However, students have especially expressed backlash against the new finals schedule, anticipating a drop in grades as a result. “If people have to take three difficult finals on two consecutive days, many of those who have to rely on finals to get or maintain an A may fail to do so,” Vaidyanathan said.

Homecoming lunches

Along with cuts to Advisory and minimum days, MSJ administrators also shortened Homecoming lunches and assembly schedules, citing  safety, equity, and liability concerns. The assemblies were cut by 15-25 minutes and now align more closely with 30-35 minute assemblies at other FUSD schools. According to Perez, administration shortened extended lunches part to minimize the number of off-campus incidents the administration is liable for. “I would say [fewer] than half of the students watch the Homecoming performances; they just leave the campus, so I just decided in favor of the majority and made sure that they do not get hurt off campus,” Perez said.

Students were quick to voice concerns about the shortened Homecoming schedule as well, citing the negative effect it would have on performances and school spirit. A 25% decrease in Homecoming performance time slots compared to previous years has led to class officers having to cut skit scenes and parts of airband performances to fit new time constraints. Sophomore Class Officer Sophia Doan says the new schedule has caused complications in her class’s Homecoming performance. “The shortened Homecoming lunch also causes a lot of conflict between airband leaders who have to decide whether they should give the more popular airbands more time or take away certain performances, placing a great deal of unnecessary stress on us,” Doan said.

Despite student concerns, many teachers are happy with the benefits the new schedule will provide. “A consistent schedule will make it easier for me to schedule longer tests; if the even day of a week fell on a Thursday, the shorter class period prevented me from having enough time to administer it,” Social Studies Teacher Katherine Williams said. However, students remain discontent with changes they feel negatively impact them and were decided without student feedback. “We want more student input, such as giving feedback on what we think is best, but ideally [we should] be able to vote on it, as it affects us as much as the teachers,” Vaidyanathan said.

 

Corrections

A previous version of the article mistakenly reported that Science Department Chair Sailakshmi Kumar commented on instructional minutes needing to be in accordance with Ohlone’s 50-minute standard. This was misattributed to Kumar and has been formally retracted from the article. 

The previous version of the article also incorrectly reported that the FUSD School Board threatened to not pay teachers for minimum days, arguing a 4.5-hour workday was too short. This has been corrected to clarify that the board proposed to require teachers to stay on campus until the scheduled end of a regular day on minimum days.