New Schedule To Be Tested Before Potential 2025-27 Rollout

Hopkins faculty members are working alongside a redesign team Leadership+Design to implement a new schedule as early as the 2025–2026 school year. The redesign team, led by 15 Hopkins faculty members, is in the process of exploring different prototypes of schedules including trimester and semester based schedules. Matt Glendinning, Head of school, said that before any changes are made, the team will be “piloting the proposed new schedule for a week or two” in order to make changes and understand its impact. 

With Leadership+Design, Hopkins is finally able to revise the schedule, a process that has been ongoing for over eight years. Proulx, the Director of Innovation & Institutional Learning explained that “plans to work with a different schedule consulting firm just before COVID derailed those efforts.” Glendinning noted one of many reasons behind a need for change: “I learned that quite a few people are dissatisfied with the schedule, particularly after experiencing something different during the pandemic.” 

Glendinning and Proulx shared the process Leadership+Design is taking to ensure Hopkins has an effective new schedule that, as Proulx said, “prioritize[s] the needs of our entire community.” Glendinning explains that the Leadership+Design planning firm is “shadowing students for whole days at a time and interview[ing] many faculty and staff in order to better understand how the pace and rhythm of our current schedule impact various people.” Glendinning also noted that the firm “undertook numerous activities to document what we like about our schedule and what we might like to change.” 

After extensive research, Hopkins derived seven key principles for the revised schedule. Proulx described these objectives, “Balance work/home life & well-being, preserve academic excellence & meaningful class time, create a schedule that's easy to understand and follow, preserve passion projects & enhance experiential learning, innovate & challenge, build community & experience joy, [and] collaborate with peers and faculty.” Proulx said that a school’s “schedule reflects what a school values, and moving to a new schedule will require compromises and trade-offs to balance the competing needs of our community.”

Glendinning and Proulx do not anticipate many challenges in implementing this schedule. Glendinning believes that “because our team has been so thorough and inclusive in its research, and because there are so many successful schedule models to draw from… the risk involved in implementing something new at Hopkins is relatively small.” 

Students within the community share their opinions on the new schedule. Nadia Goodman ’24 said, “I think that for students that are comfortable with the schedule it will be confusing to change schedules mid-way through high school.” Raleigh Simmonds ’27 commented, “our current schedule is kind of odd. It is really messy because none of the days are ever the same and it's not a clear rotation, it's always just a little different.” Adding that “it would be really good if they could change [the schedule] so that it is …the same every week instead of there being grey and maroon weeks…I'd like it to be more clear”

Many students agree that they would like the new schedule to include more free time in the day Goodman said that although she “likes the schedule now” she would prefer the revised schedule to have “a segment built into…the beginning of the day…to meet with teachers like office hours…or even to just have 30 minutes at the beginning of the day to just relax.” Arjun Vashist ’27 agreed, “I’d like the new schedule to have 45 minute classes and built in time to meet with teachers.” Morgan Brushett ’26 similarly advocates for more time: “we should have longer periods before classes start like advisory or assembly so that way there's more time to get to school.” 

Teachers, Daniel Drummond and Gabriella Gerstenfeld, share their opinions and hopes for the new schedule. Drummond, a college counselor and English teacher, who is a part of the schedule redesign committee explained that although it is too early in the redesign process to tell how the schedule will affect his teaching, he hopes that the new schedule will include “predictability and ease of understanding, more time to meet with both colleagues and students as needed outside of class, and more time for student clubs and activities throughout the year.” Spanish teacher, Gabriella Gerstenfeld, expressed her disapproval for a trimester based schedule for the language department: “if trimester implies that you…get one semester free…that will be the end for language classes.” She added that having a semester free of a language class would be “a curse” for the language department. 

Glendinning stated that the design team is “now 10 months into this project [and] are at the stage of narrowing [the] focus to several possible schedule models.” Proulx said, “if we decide to make more significant changes, we’ll need additional time to ensure we are fully prepared, targeting the 2026–2027 school year for implementation.” Glendinning shared the scheduling team's commitment and dedication to changing the schedule: “We want to do this well and there’s no reason to rush such an important decision.”