District Eight School Board considers schedule changes

BY JENNIE KELLER
At the District 8 School Board meeting held on January 27, District Superintendent Cheryl Serrano opened a discussion regarding changing Fountain Fort Carson High Schools current student schedule. Students at the school are currently utilizing a Block schedule; Serrano is looking into an adaptation of a 7-period schedule.
“How do we best improve student achievement and student success? There is a direct tie between student achievement and time in the classroom. That is why we are looking into changing the daily schedule,” declared Serrano. “We have great teachers, but our high school is not thriving, we need to take steps to bring our high school to the level that we want and need it to be.”
FFCHS is currently on a Block schedule. They have been on the Block schedule since the mid-90s.
“The Block schedule as it stands creates a lack of consistency for our students. It is possible that a student will have math in the fall semester one year, and then not again until the spring semester of the next year. By then, they likely have forgotten much of the math they learned since they have not been applying the knowledge,” said Serrano.
Switching to a 7-period day would mean that students would have core classes: language arts, math, social studies, and science, for an entire year. Classes would be 53 minutes long instead of the current 90 minutes. However, by having the 7-period day, the amount of learning time per class would actually go up by 30 hours, per class, each year. This is an added 120 hours per core class over the four years of high school.
The length of the class is of high importance. “Ninety minute block classes require attention spans that simply are not there. Teachers will teach for a time and then some of the class time is used to work on homework,” statedSerrano. “A short class of 53 minutes allows the teacher to interact with the students for the entire class and then let homework, be homework. So the amount of learning and teaching time goes up drastically.”
There are several concerns with the possibility of a 7-period schedule. For one, the District does not have enough text books to supply all students with a copy. Plus, since FFCHS does not have lockers, the students would have to carry around far too many books. If the possibility of the 7-period day moves forward, serious research regarding online textbooks would have to occur.
FFCHS has offered college level course for students for several years. Serrano believes that the 7-period day will not negatively impact the ability for Fountain students to complete college courses while attending high school.
School Board President Greg Welch is in favor of exploring the 7-period option. “We’ve changed some other things and haven’t gotten the results that we wanted. So I’m glad we are looking outside the box to see how we can make effective changes.”
One option that was brought to the table included a Modified 7-Period schedule. Students would attend all classes on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. On Wednesday they would attend odd numbered periods for extended block times and on Thursday they would attend even numbered periods for extended learning blocks.
School Board member Dawn Bentley likes the idea behind the Modified schedule but would like to hear more information about it before deciding what option is best.
Other changes are being made to help overall student achievement. The entire district will be adopting the same curriculum. This means that students who may move between schools will not be walking into a math or language arts program that they are not familiar with. This will also allow teachers to learn and train with each other.
The possibility of the schedule change for FFCHS is still in early discussion. If there is a decision made to switch to the 7-Period schedule, it would be done in time to be implemented for the 2010-2011 school year.