Class plans get low grade

Some teachers don't think students are well-served by the schedule that all high schools adopted this year.

"In 30 years of teaching, I have never seen this many teachers this upset," said Kirsten Russ, who teaches civics and economics at West Forsyth High School.

Last year, half the high schools in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system had a block schedule with one-semester block classes. The other half had year-long courses in shorter periods. This year, all high schools began operating a "unified" or "hybrid" schedule that offers a combination of 48-minute year-long classes and 101-minute block classes that finish in one semester. Most students take a mixture of the two.

With the new schedule, some teachers see struggling students falling farther behind, a lack of flexibility in making schedule changes, difficulty scheduling required classes and classes that are too large.

Stuart Egan, who teaches advanced-placement English classes at West Forsyth, said, "They are huge. I have AP classes where I bring chairs in."

School officials readily acknowledge problems with the new system.

"Some things we thought would allow more flexibility have, in fact, allowed less flexibility," said Paul Puryear, the assistant superintendent for high schools. "We have also been able to identify some areas where we may need to rethink things."

Puryear said that school officials think that there are some sound principals behind the schedule and are committed to making adjustments and giving it at least one more year, he said. ""We're not quite ready to give up on it yet."

Kenneth Simington, the assistant superintendent for student services, said, "We still feel like the reasons for doing unified are solid."

With Puryear retiring at the end of the month, Simington has responsibility for overseeing high-school scheduling issues.

Problems with the new schedule arose well before school started. Scheduling students at both the Career Center and their home school proved to be complicated. And the computer system being used didn't recognize the difference between, say, a U.S. history class taken in a one-semester block and U.S. history taken in a year-long class. Guidance counselors and others had to work countless hours to sort out everything.

Creating an eight-period day would have eased some of the scheduling challenges. But that wasn't practical, Simington said. "We don't currently have enough time in the day to schedule an eighth period. There would have to be an extension in the day."

Reasons for creating the new system included improving the graduation rate. A student who failed a class taught in a single-semester block could, theoretically, take it again the next semester. And having all the schools on the same schedule makes it easier for students to transfer from one school to another.

Another reason for offering a combination of year-long and block classes is that school officials thought that some courses work better in blocks and some better as year-long courses. For instance, a longer, block class enables a science teacher to offer a lab during the period. And a foreign language works well with a year-long class so that there aren't big gaps between taking one level and the next.

However, the new schedule means that a student may finish a course at, say, the end of the first semester of one year and not take the next level until the second semester of the following year.

"If that is math or foreign language, that is deadly," said Kirsten Russ, who teaches civics and economics at West Forsyth.

Teachers at West Forsyth -- which had all year-long courses last year -- readily acknowledge that some of their discomfort is a matter of adjusting to a new system. There is more to it than that, though, they said.

Cory MacGillivray, who teaches biology at West Forsyth, said that he's not sure all science classes work better as blocks.

"Should all science be blocked?" he said. "I think a lot of science teachers would disagree."

For students who are struggling, block classes can mean falling behind more quickly and having fewer options for catching up, he said. "If a student is absent, it's like missing two days on the year-long."

How well the hybrid schedule serves students aside, it can clearly create more work for teachers. A teacher teaching the same class both as a block and as a year-long class has to create separate lesson plans for each class because they are moving at different rates. Plus, a single 101-minute block requires a different approach than two 48-minute periods.

"You have to adjust your teaching," Gillivray said.

"We don't mind the work if it's going to increase student learning," said Debra Troxell, who is the chairwoman of the social-studies department.

Troxell is among those who think that the motivation for adding block classes to the schedule at all the high schools is, in part, financial.

"It's more economical to teach in the block schedule," she said.

Some teachers are reserving judgment on the new schedule. Parkland was one of the high schools on the 90-minute block schedule last year, and Erin Russ, who teaches civics there, wants to give the schedule more time to see whether it improves student achievement.

"I don't think we can draw a conclusion this early," she said.

kunderwood@wsjournal.com
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