To manage crowding, Francis Lewis HS plans a 13-period day

Last year, the school day at packed-to-the-gills Francis Lewis High School in Queens lasted 12 periods to accommodate all 4,500 students. This year, the number of periods is rising to 13, writes Arthur Goldstein, the UFT chapter leader at Francis Lewis, in GothamSchools’s community section.

A 13-period day can only exacerbate the scheduling problems that already plague the school, Goldstein writes:

When you have 12 periods, when you have three sessions, you can never get the staff together, you can never get the department together, and every meeting becomes 3 meetings. Kids eat lunch at 9 in the morning. They come in for free breakfast and have five minutes to eat it and show up to my class. Kids come running into the trailer with styrofoam trays full of what appears to be styrofoam food. … So how do you fix a school that has 12 periods? Well, this year, we’re gonna make it 13 periods.