After a two-year hiatus, Coppell ISD has reinstated C days, allocating time on Fridays to foster student-teacher relations.

C days follow the traditional bell schedule where students attend all eight of their classes for 45 minutes each. The classes are ordered first period, fifth period, second period, sixth period, third period, seventh period, fourth period and eighth period to ensure that double blocked periods occur consecutively. Passing periods are five minutes and lunches are based on the student’s third period class. 

The reimplementation allows teachers time to cover material that students may have missed during the week. Teachers are able to reiterate tougher concepts during the 45-minute time period to solidify student learning.

“If you had two A days and your teacher saw [students] really didn’t get this one unit or they didn’t get this concept, C days are a chance for them to come back and say, let me find those five, 10 kids that didn’t get that concept, and let me really burrow in on that concept with them,” Coppell High School associate principal Zane Porter said. “And while I’m doing that, let me create an extension for the kids that did get it so they can extend their knowledge so they’re not wasting that time.”

Due to the A, B, C day schedule, teachers are now able to see their students three times a week. This schedule allows teachers to administer tests for their A day and B day students during the same week.

C days were eliminated during the second semester of the 2019-20 school year due to transportation issues from New Tech High @ Coppell, CHS9 and CHS. Taking this issue into consideration, shuttles have run this year on C days, but the shuttling process is still being decided.

For now, some single blocked class students stay at their respective campuses and learn from that location. For example, single blocked color guard students coming from CHS9 shuttle to CHS on A and B days but stay at CHS9 on C days.

“At first I thought it would be weird not to have the [color guard upperclassmen] around, just because we’ve always practiced together at the high school, but I realized it was fun to be with the freshmen on  C days because it helped us get closer [and] we got to see and learn from each other,” CHS9 color guard member Aryahi Ravi said. “Usually on Fridays we don’t learn anything new; we review stuff that we’ve already learned and we have two directors that come over from CHS, Justin Lum and Jessica Mitchell, and they lead the whole class.”

Students who take double block classes, such as varsity swimming or band, shuttle to CHS on C days as the double blocked classes are 90 minutes and students miss minimal amounts of lesson time.

C days, while enriching student learning, have benefits for teachers, too. Teachers take part in professional development opportunities on these days.

“On a C day, your teachers have two conference periods,” Porter said. “We’re using one of those conference periods as a time to grow [teachers] in areas that [are needed] in our building – whether that’s teaching them how to do group quizzes, how to do small groups in classes or how to work one-on-one or one-on-three with learners most efficiently.”

The 45-minute class periods on C days, however, pose challenges to certain teachers, especially those who teach classes where materials need to be taken out or put away. CHS art teacher Michelle Hauske was apprehensive when she was first introduced to C days in 2019, but after understanding the routine, she enjoyed having them. 

“Around [the] second nine weeks [of 2019], I really figured out how to use [C days],” Hauske said. “The C day has a lot of benefits because you get to see people more than twice a week; it’s nice to have a closing of the week before everybody goes on a weekend break. Teachers this year are going to be in the same situation where it’s just figuring out how to maximize [the time] and getting used to that kind of a schedule. If you’re used to the pacing of a 90-minute block, it feels very different.”

Taking safety into account in light of recent events, CISD has decided that students may leave campus on C days if they have an off period, but can only re-enter the building through the front office. 

“Learners who have a fourth or fifth period release on C days may leave the building for those periods or stay in the Commons,” Porter said via email. “When learners return to the building, they must enter through the front doors or the C-store doors; no other entry points will be available. No learners should be in the hallways unless they are supervised by a teacher.”

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