NOTE: This version was updated on August 20 with an email sent to students on August 18 from CHS Principal Frank Sanchez.
With school starting on Tuesday, September 1, the South Orange-Maplewood School District has shared the new school start and end times — designed at least in part to make transportation more affordable and efficient — and is answering questions about the shortened conference period at Columbia High School.
See the schedule here:
Early this week, CHS Principal Frank Sanchez sent an email to students and families, explaining the schedule changes:
“The adjustment to Conference Time reflects a broader effort to create a school day that better supports both student wellness and academic success. Rather than maintaining a longer conference period at the expense of other priorities, the new schedule reallocates time to create a more balanced day with fewer transitions, a later start, longer instructional blocks, and a common lunch that provides opportunities for connection, support, tutoring, and student activities. These changes are consistent with our goal of creating conditions in which students can be focused, engaged, and ready to learn.
The schedule changes also contribute to district-wide operational efficiencies, including savings associated with the three-tiered transportation system and revised start and dismissal times. Importantly, those efficiencies allow the district to make schedule changes while continuing to invest in student supports.
A shorter Conference time does not mean less access to support. CHS will strengthen the resources available during the time students do have, including a new Testing Center located in the Library and available every period. Students can use the Testing Center for extended-time and reduced-distraction testing, make-up assessments, and other testing needs. This provides a consistent, accessible support similar to testing centers found on college and university campuses.
Ultimately, the goal is to move away from thinking about student success as simply providing more available time and toward ensuring that the time students spend at school is purposeful, supportive, and sustainable. Academic rigor remains a priority, but so does creating a school day in which students have the energy, focus, and well-being necessary to succeed.”
On Tuesday, August 18, Sanchez followed up with the following email with more specifics for students.
Dear CHS Families & Students,
We want to thank our counseling department for publishing your child’s schedules on PowerSchool this week. Please know that the drop-add deadline is September 22nd. If you need to make a change over the summer, then please use this specific Counseling form.
Since you can now look up your classes and see your specific schedule, I created this template for you so you can print it out and place it in one of your notebooks. This will assist you because we have a new modified-block, drop-rotational schedule. To learn more about our new schedule, please refer to our Frequently Asked Questions, created by our counseling department.
To help you complete the template, watch this video explanation we recorded last week. Basically, you are taking the four classes before lunch, filling in the AM “wheel,” and doing the same with the four classes after lunch. In addition, Dr. Antoni and I will be holding a second virtual tutorial on August 27th at 12 pm. (Here’s the Webex Link for that event.)
As promised, we also have the schedule for each rotational day for 2026-2027 here. This way, you can plan morning and afternoon appointments strategically to minimize the impact on core classes. If there is a snow day, we will be moving forward with the schedule as planned, and we won’t be making any changes.
You will notice that on September 1st and 2nd, we will have an X-Day, which means we will be running a schedule with truncated times so all 8 classes meet. This will allow us to still have our club fair on September 1st and grade-level meetings on September 2nd. The calendar also identifies testing days in October (PSAT), January (midterms), March (NJGPA), and June (finals). The only state testing that is missing is the NJSLA, which we will add to the calendar closer to May 2027, when the testing window is clearer. Those “Z Days” will not have all 8 classes; instead, we will only meet a few of the classes, which we will rotate throughout the year to maintain equitable instructional time among the classes. Finally, if there is a line through the date, then that signifies a half-day. During these dates, we will follow our half-day schedule, which can be found in this document on page 2. Our delayed opening schedule can be found on page 3.
I look forward to sending an additional communication next week with more information as we get closer to the first day of school!
