County draws plans remaking school schedule

After weathering a storm of parent concerns, Albemarle school officials are finalizing details of a new class schedule that will have students taking up to eight classes yearly, instead of seven.

“This is a way to really fundamentally change the opportunities for students,” said Matt Haas, Albemarle director of secondary education.

With little warning, the School Board approved in February what was initially dubbed a “modified four-by-four block schedule,” effective for next school year. In addition to saving the school division more than $820,000 yearly, school administrators said the system would allow students to focus on fewer classes at once and take more electives.

The system has been altered and renamed as an “eight-period hybrid schedule.”

Parents have flooded School Board members’ e-mail boxes with concerns. Many of the concerns were based on misconceptions because the schedule was approved before being thoroughly explained to students and parents. Other concerns were not based on misconceptions, and officials have worked to address those issues in the past couple of months.

School-level and countywide design teams have been manned with administrators, counselors, school leaders and students.

Haas says critics of the new system who had been saying essentially “this is the worst thing that could ever happen” are redirecting their focus toward “How do we make this work?”

Addressing concerns

Currently, students take up to seven classes per academic year, with most of the classes being held on alternating days for the full length of the school year. Starting next school year, students will be able to take up to eight classes, most of which are semester-long and meet daily.

One of the greatest concerns about a traditional four-by-four block schedule is that some classes are better suited to last a full school year. From the beginning, school administrators set out to offer some courses on a yearlong-basis, such as band, newspaper and many Advanced Placement courses.

But some in the community have said school officials’ plans still failed to settle all of their issues.

Several University of Virginia math professors, for example, co-signed a letter in March denouncing the new schedule, arguing math education would suffer.

“There is much research showing that such a stop-start schedule, with its evident problems of retention of information from year to year, has a particularly negative effect on mathematics achievement,” the letter states.

The school division is now poised to make Algebra I a yearlong, double-blocked course. Honors Math Analysis and Algebra II will also be offered as yearlong courses in some cases. And students will have the option to take sequential math courses in back-to-back semesters.

During interviews in February, school administrators said they would try to ensure students who want to take sequential math courses in back-to-back semesters can do so, but they fell short of promises. But the tune has since changed.

“We’ve committed to that,” Haas said.

Laura Gunlicks, director of school counseling at Monticello High School, said a large portion of students are satisfied with taking only one math course per year, but those who want to take consecutive math courses “certainly have that option.”

Gunlicks said a small number of students have also asked to be enrolled in an uninterrupted sequence of foreign languages, a request the school division has agreed to meet.

Faculty slashed

The new schedule saves money because it reduces 13 teaching positions — positions that officials say likely would have been cut anyway because of the economic downturn.

The hybrid schedule will not cause an increase in class sizes because teachers will generally have to teach three out of four class blocks per semester — for a total of six per year — compared with teaching five out of seven blocks in this year’s system. The number of students in classes in fourth through 12th grades will increase by one next school year because of a separate reduction of nine more teaching positions. About 22 teaching positions are to be cut in total.

School officials are able to fit eight classes into the year, instead of seven, because some class and intervention period times — when students can obtain extra help on classwork — are being reduced.

Albemarle High School, for example, is considering cutting a 90-minute intervention period for students to 45 minutes, Haas said.

Under the hybrid schedule, students will have the opportunity to take up to 32 classes in their high school careers, compared with 28 under the current system. This grants students a slew of new options, considering they will be required to pass 26 courses to earn an advanced diploma in Virginia next year. Some students will be able to take more electives or participate in more college dual-enrollment courses, while others will be able to have fewer classes as seniors. Students can more easily retake classes that they perform poorly in without having to go to school another year.

In 2011-12, Haas said, the school division will probably consider starting the school year earlier to have the first semester end before winter break.