For the past couple of months, interest has been building to change the way classes are conducted at Cook County Independent School District (I.S.D.) 166. Principal Adam Nelson, Assistant Principal Bill DeWitt and high school counselor Kris Hoffman have been talking to teachers, staff, and students to see if they would be interested in going to what is called block scheduling. The school board has been kept informed and asked a lot of questions as the process has continued. At the board’s last meeting held on May 18, it became official; CCHS will go to block scheduling for the next school year.
So what is block scheduling? And how is it different than what the school now uses?
Kris Hoffman sat down to answer some questions for the newspaper. Here are his responses.
“The main differences between the block schedule and our current plan is duration of classes with some other things that come along with that.
“Currently, we operate under a seven-period per-day model, with another half hour period called advisory. A block schedule reduces it down to four periods (and advisory) per day. With seven periods, each class is 52 minutes. With four classes, each period is 88 minutes. The extended duration of time allows for more practice and can lead to a deeper understanding of the subject material. Another easy observation that can be made is, despite it being more time every day in each class, that means the teachers are only meeting with the students half of the days throughout the year. So, 52 minutes every day for 160 days is manifestly more minutes than 88 minutes for 80 days. But, with the increased depth and more specific focus spent on some bigger details of each class (science labs can be longer and more in depth, English classes could have more time to pursue more speeches and performances as alternative assessments, math labs get to be more focused towards bigger ideas, etc.).
“In essence, it boils down to options. Kids can take an extra elective in middle school and high school, allowing them more opportunity to learn a wider variety of topics. It allows the teachers to have more professional discretion about how deep to ‘drill down’ in some bigger areas of the curriculum and how to effectively evaluate those outcomes.”
How many “blocks” will be in a school day next year?
Our schedule next year will be what’s called an A/B Block Schedule. Meaning students will primarily rotate every other day. An example of this would be, for an A day, a student may have phy ed, English, Spanish, and band, and on B-days, they might have social studies, science, math, and choir.
So, every day the kids would know whether or not it is an A- day or a B-day, essentially meaning, they will only have four classes worth of homework every night, instead of seven. Plus, with the advisory time, the students will have a half hour built in during the day to get homework done. So, from my perspective, there will be eight blocks, but they will rotate every other day.
What advantage is there to a block schedule versus what we are currently using?
Advantages are many, said Hoffman.
“For our athletes (football, basketball, track, etc.), students will miss less class time. Let’s say, for example, if a baseball team has an away game, they may leave at noon on an A day. They would not have to worry about missing homework, and staying up all night to complete the work that they were not there for until two days later. This would allow them to get back on track a lot easier with those intermittent interruptions of being involved in athletics in our part of the state.
“Students only have four classes of homework every night instead of seven. And a half hour every day for them to get that work done. So, a block schedule, from my perspective, means less homework.”
Then too, said Hoffman, there is the quality of the school environment.
“Schools I have researched that have made the switch from traditional (seven-period day) to a block schedule model see less disciplinary referrals. They see higher staff morale. The staff can embrace each student and create more meaningful interactions with each student on a daily basis.”
When it comes to comparing results of state or national testing Hoffman replied:
“I have found no evidence that links a block schedule to be better than a traditional, or vice-versa. State standard tests, ACT tests, and AP tests, growth projections…. The biggest thing that correlates to higher student achievement is the relationships and the understanding of larger concepts in the actual classroom. And, from my perspective and the research that I have seen, I feel like it will be a positive shift for us, but statistically speaking, there is no evidence that directly reflects that a block schedule is better than a traditional program.
“Student achievement stays relatively the same, less homework, less time missed for extracurricular, less disciplinary referrals, higher staff satisfaction. I believe that this is a change that will impact our school in a lot of positive ways.
Will this new schedule be used for elementary, junior and senior high?
When it comes to the way classes are conducted in elementary school, Hoffman replied:
“It will not change how the classroom instruction is done in the elementary classroom. The core teaching will not change much with this switch.
“However, with the block scheduling at the middle school and high school level, it frees up our specialist teachers (music, art, phy ed, and technology) to have a longer time to meet with students, and actually on a more frequent basis for some specialists. So, direct changes, there are none. But, it does provide many additional learning opportunities for some of those other skill sets that help develop the whole student to meet their potential.
“As far middle school, they already do parts of the day as an A/B block schedule, so they are the most well-versed in this scenario. This also means that our high school students have experience in this from their time in 6th-8th grade.”
Are teachers excited about the change? And are the students excited as well?
“Yes, the high school staff is very excited for a change to how we teach our students, and they are looking forward to diving deep into many underlying themes that are there, but there isn’t enough time in our current schedule to do that. Even the students who have seen what their schedules will look like next year have said, ‘This is the smartest decision that this school has ever made.’ In my conversations, I have had zero students frustrated about the change. Zero.”
Mr. Nelson said 8th-grade students would be able to take one more elective next year. Can you explain why that is?
“With eight periods every two days, instead of seven classes like there currently are, this allows all students in grades 7-8 to have an additional class period every two days to explore different things. We’ve added creative writing, health systems, robotics, and one or two others that are escaping me that are new this year just in middle school.
“All in all, the block schedule allows us to offer more classes in high school which includes anatomy and physiology, AP environmental sciences (which is back after a short break), robotics 1, a third section of culinary arts, a new economic development curriculum, AP Spanish, a CNA course, and the one I am most excited about is the Native American Studies course as well as all of the same courses we typically run every year.
“There are sacrifices being made, our teachers are working diligently to restructure every course to better suit the longer class period model of a block schedule, and it is a significant change to add 36 minutes of meaningful classroom learning into each class period, but the teachers have already been using time during our professional development days to re-work their curriculum. They will get longer preps next year.
“At the school board level, the conversation was, if we’re doing it, let’s do it right. And, thanks to our building (principals, union leadership, etc.) and district administration, I feel that we are about to embark on something special.”
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