The 7:35 bell rings throughout Mayfield High School; the long day has just begun for almost 1500 students and faculty.

Mayfield High School has been known to have one of the longest school days in Northeast Ohio, with 50 minute classes and five minutes of passing time between each class.

Principal Jeff Legan feels the long school day is beneficial for educational purposes, but he does agree that it can have a negative toll on the students. He said, “[With the long school day] you’re able to engage in the class for a longer time. With the 50 minutes we can have deeper conversations. This also gives more time for intervention for the teachers.”

Legan said, “Depending on the class structure, 50 minutes may be way too long. It’s a long day for kids especially for the students who have seven classes during the day.”

Assistant principal Jarrod Mulheman thinks that the longer school days allows more opportunities for students to have a better education, and by shortening the day that opportunity might decrease.

Mulheman said, “[With the bell schedule] we have more time for instruction. The longer day allows us a lot of course offerings. We can offer multiple classes because of the eight periods in the day, and [it] allows students the flexibility to take more classes.”

With the eight periods  schedule, Legan believes students can take multiple classes and graduate with credits beyond the required amount. However, for students, the longer school day means more homework, waking up earlier, and less sleep.

These complications may cause major stress, anxiety, and even depression among students who struggle to keep up with the fast pace.

But by shortening the school day, these negative events can be dramatically reduced and improved, according to Legan and Mulheman.

Mulheman said, “High school students can get the sleep they need. Biologically, high school students need eight to nine hours of sleep. It is recommended that school should not start before eight and yet we do.”

Additionally, Mulheman added that by shorting the school day, students will get the amount of sleep they need to help reduce stress and anxiety levels, while increasing test scores. Students will be more alert and it will overall be beneficial for both teachers and students.

Sophomore Jaiden Varanese is an honors student who takes seven classes a day, is a member of the Limited Edition Show Choir, and a musical participant. Some nights she does not get home until nine o clock and still is left with loads of homework to do.

Varanese said, “[The bell schedules] are not good for highschool students because of the attention span of most kids. Some students do not do well with long hours and cramming an abundance of knowledge which is causing high schoolers to not to be able to retain anything, or do well on tests. All because we have so much crammed into one week for a test at the end that we don’t learn what’s being taught.”

Legan empathizes with the students of Mayfield and understands how much work and responsibility is on their plate.

In regards to changing the school day, he said, “I agree. You guys have busy schedules between school work, to practice, to extra curricular activity, to work, and making money. It would benefit you greatly. Study shows with more sleep and rest, the rate of student car accidents goes down. Rest would also help with depression.”

The faculty is always looking for a chance to improve student education, as well as finding new ways to add better adjustments to the schedule

Legan said, “I would like to not have a bell schedule at all. I would like for the students to customize their own schedules based on what they want their days to look like. The issue we have now is that a student might be engaged in such a thought-provoking topic, that the bell rings and you have to leave, and go to another class period to adjust your thought process.”

If the bell schedule was to change Varanese said, “I believe that it would better our lives because of the amount of work we already received, there is not an adequate amount of time to complete it all because there are students who partake in after school activities who do not arrive home until after five or later, depending on the activity; leaving them only time to cram and stay up to ungodly hours of the night trying to complete assignments.”

On the other hand, Italian teacher Melissa Fini-Sanson thinks differently. She has been teaching for 17 years and feels the bell schedule is highly beneficial to students, as well as teachers.

She said, “I think school is good for children, it’s a necessary institution, and by being in school for a longer time it opens up more educational opportunities for children as well as more time to indulge in the classes that students want to take.”

With shortening the school day she feels it still will require her and her coworkers to work longer days because of their contracts. But she said, “I am not opposed at all to a later starting time. I just worry about an overall shorter day may not be the best schedule to further the learning experience.”

It takes a great amount of work to operate the school and make such changes, according to Mulheman. Mayfield has a committee of administrators that handle these changes, including Mr. Legan and Mr. Mulheman. Although there are no plans on changing the bell schedule anytime soon there is always talk about improving it.