High School scheduling decision likely tonight

In all likelihood, the South Bend Community School Corporation Board of Trustees will vote to change the school year and class length at their business meeting tonight. The change will be to a trimester program (rather than the current quarter/semester format). Classes will be organized into seventy-five minute blocks, five per day. I'm not clear how lunch fits into this scheme - is it also an hour and fifteen minutes? A split period?

I think everyone agrees that students would be able to take more classes (throughout their matriculation) than under the current arrangement and that total instruction time in each class would be reduced. This is a summary prepared by Toni Fein of the Adams High parent group:

Trimesters –At Elkhart Central it means students take 5 x 75 minute classes in each of three trimesters. Each trimester students finish one semester of 5 classes. Teachers teach 4 of 5 classes /day and have one 75 minute plan. Ideally, students will have finished 15 semesters of classes in one year. All trimesters accelerate/condense classes at least some classes into shorter time frames with longer class periods.

Students have a trimester (and summer) off from band, language and math classes each year. Music, Language and Math profs. believe that many students have difficulty retaining information/playing ability when they have long breaks from studying a subject. This break could be as long as 6 months, 1 trimester plus, summer.

Some schools have students take Band, World Languages, and Math on regular semesters and use trimesters for electives. This “fix” results in few if any added electives relative to a six period day.

Per Elkhart's guidance counselor, it is extremely difficult for students to move between schools with trimesters and semesters because students lose credits that are not complete. This is a serious problem for the SBCSC where we have significant mobility among our at-risk students between South Bend and neighboring districts on semester calendars.

It is rarely used in I.B. programs in the U.S. because finishing required classes in February is not compatible with the IB program which tests all students worldwide only in May. Students who struggle to learn may find it difficult to learn more material each day and they may also have difficulty retaining information during breaks in learning that are part of the trimester system. It is more expensive than our current schedule, but less expensive than block 8 to implement because fewer teachers are needed than in block 8.

At least some of the impetus for a scheduling redo came from the situation that it was not possible to satisfy the requirements of Adams' International Baccalaureate Program and the State of Indiana graduation requirements. But as Ms. Fein points out, there are still challenges for IB students under this setup. And a bigger question is, what does this do to improve prospects for enhanced graduation rates? At best, it seems to allow for more class failures without jeopardizing (completely) prospects of graduating (for a given student).

I'll be interested to hear what new trustee Roger Parent thinks of this. I take him at his word that he wants policy to create world class schools and this action seems to set the bar a bit low. The Board (with the exception of Ralph Pieniazkewicz (opposed) and Bill Sniadecki (favoring) seemed pretty noncommittal so far, but I have to wonder if the administration would steam forward in the face of strong opposition from the incoming newbies Mr. Parent and Ms. Spivey.

I don't have strong views of my own about all this, and Lord knows the SBCSC will radically change High School scheduling at least twice before our daughter gets that far, but a lot of this just doesn't make sense to me.

For one thing, why did Elkhart Central decide this concept didn't work? This question is typically brushed off as not applicable, for some reason.

As mentioned earlier, this concept will cause problems for any student leaving the district - since few others use it.

This format is inconsistent with that of the Primary and Intermediate Centers. That could make personnel transfers more challenging mid-year.

An hour and fifteen minutes for every class a High School Freshman takes is a very long time. Unless the teacher is awfully good, a great deal of the time will be filled with daydreaming (oops, visualization). And the format assumes that every class requires the same amount of time to successfully master. That's very unlikely to be true.

Sadly, the most persuasive argument I've heard is that this will be easy and relatively cheap for the implementers.

I'll end this by making the same entreaty I seem to have to make over and over again to this group: Give us reason to support your decision.

That's all most of us want.