Athens Drive is experiencing a schedule change for the 2018-2019 school year. New items have been added to this year’s schedule, such as split lunches and a new tutorial time known as Athens Advantage. Both students and teachers are having to adjust to the new bell schedule.

A lunch and B lunch are not new to Athens Drive, but in the years before the students were not split into two separate lunch groups. The previous years’  “smart lunch” was found to be unhelpful for the majority of students. There was not enough time for students to receive help from their teacher. With Athens Advantage, students in need of help will be able to receive an extra 24 minutes of help at least once a week.

Each weekday will have a different Advantage Time class period for the day’s  schedule. Monday’s will be focusing on first period’s Advantage time, Tuesday’s are for second period, Wednesday’s are for third period, Thursday’s for fourth period, and then on Friday’s students return to Drive Time.

Athens Advantage will have incentives to push students to work harder.  If students in a class have an 80 percent or higher, they will be free to go to common areas for that class period’s advantage time. Going to common areas such as the cafeteria or the gym would allow students to have time to either socialize or finish work from class.

Having both A and B lunch has caused mixed reactions. Many students are unhappy about being separated from their friends during lunch. In order to allow students to have time to spend with all of their friends, Wednesdays and Thursdays students were supposed to be for common lunch, allowing everyone to eat together.

This idea of common lunch has been decided against. Principal Stephen Mares made an announcement Sept. 20 stating that students would continue with A and B lunch for the remainder of the year. Some students have reported other advantages for having separated lunches.

“For the students that go off campus there are less students going off at one time, which means there is less traffic and we get our food faster,” said Joana Mendez Lagunas, senior.

Both the new lunch system and Athens Advantage time will take some getting used to for students. The new schedule is set to begin after the first 20 days of school.