Not op but my middle school had a lot of odd schedule times to avoid students memorizing when a class ended. It didn't really work. Some teachers couldn't figure out when classes ended though.

> Not op but my middle school had a lot of odd schedule times to avoid students memorizing when a class ended.

But wouldn't that also mean a lot of students didn't know when classes started?

I've never heard of school starting at 7:17. It was always a round number like 7 am or quarter intervals ( 7:15, 7:30, 7:45 ).

I don't think I've ever had anything like that for work meetings or interviews. If someone scheduled a meeting for 7:37, he'd get laughed at.

You (hopefully!) don't have six or seven 45 minute back-to-back meetings, with a few minutes of designated "passing time" to travel between them.

With those constraints, it's hard to develop a schedule that sticks to round numbers. This is especially true if you want to minimize downtime: your officemates can be trusted to productively--or at least quietly--occupy a few minutes of downtime, but many schools don't seem to think kids can.

My high school, for example, ended at 2:18pm (I can still picture the clock), but I think this was a consequence of starting at 7:30am.

> My high school, for example, ended at 2:18pm (I can still picture the clock), but I think this was a consequence of starting at 7:30am.

That's interesting. If your classes are 45 mins or an hour long and you get 5, 10 or 15 minutes to get to your next class, how do you end up with 2:18pm? Also, even if it was 2:18pm, I'd imagine most schools would just round that up to 2:20pm or let you leave a few minutes earlier at 2:15pm.

I don't ever recall any of my classes ending in a none-round number ( time that didn't end with a 0 or a 5 ). I don't recall any school letting me out at a none-round number.

As a matter of fact, I don't recall any stores, government offices or tv shows that didn't open or start at a "round number".

And every meeting I've had ( even multiple meetings in a day ) always was at a "round number". I can't imagine saying lets start the meeting at 2:17pm. Most of the time we'd bump it to 2:30pm. And if we were constrained for time to 2:20pm.

I can't remember how long we got between classes (it was /many/ years ago), but it was far, far less than fifteen minutes, and maybe not even five. You had to hustle between distant classes.

Just for kicks, I searched for "high school bell schedule" and about half seem to run on round numbers and half seem to be totally bizarre. For example:

- Starts at 7:45 but heads off the rails quickly: https://lchs.lpsd.ca/about/bell-schedule - 5/15/50 minute blocks: http://beaconsfield.lbpsb.qc.ca/Parents/Bell-Schedule

Why didn't they want people to know when it ended?

I think we had something like 17 minutes for announcements and attendance, then 5 minutes to get to our first period class that started at 7:40?

Not quite as odd, but my high school started at 8:10