As students looked at the top of their schedules this year, they probably noticed that something was missing.

For the first time in eight years, students do not have a 23-minute Zone period on Monday mornings anymore.

“It seemed sort of pointless to spend such a short amount of time doing pretty much nothing and having my entire day rearranged by it,” junior Logan Grooms said. “Half the time Zone would be cancelled and it was hard to ever be sure if it was a Zone day or not.”

And that’s exactly why it was taken out.

“We had a committee meeting regarding Zone and we agreed that the main benefit of it was the information the students receive,” Principal John Yonker said. “Which is why we’re doing the extended class periods. However, we’re encouraging teachers who had freshmen, sophomores and juniors last year to keep in touch and maintain the camaraderie that Zone provided.”

As of this year, all announcements will be given during lengthened second and sixth period classes whenever there is news that needs to be shared with the entire school. First or fifth period will end five minutes early as it would on a Zone day, and an extra half hour will be spent in second or sixth period receiving the information. The rest of the day will proceed like a Zone day.

It was decided that lengthening a class period would be a more efficient way to distribute information whenever necessary, and it also ensures that students are present when important news needs to be shared.

“We feel that this will be a positive change,” Yonker said. “Hopefully, this system will work better than Zone.