Teachers and administrators will hear from a panel of staff members from other school districts today to make a more informed choice about Paly’s bell schedule for next year, according to Assistant Principal Kim Diorio.
“Teachers from other areas will come and speak to us about their experiences in making schedule changes and with whatever schedule they’re working with, whether it be a four-day block or two-day block,” Diorio said in an interview yesterday.
The action committee spent last semester narrowing down potential schedules to two concrete options, and will use this semester to gather input from the rest of the community. After this meeting, staff members will brainstorm and plan the next course of action.
“We’ll be talking about what we else we need to make a final decision: is it more information? A trial period for the four-day block?” Diorio said. “We hope to make a final decision by late April or early May.”
Although the official action committee spearheading the schedule change consists of 30 teachers and administrators, every teacher will attend the event and vote on the final schedule for next year.
The official options on the table are a four-day block, a blocked seventh period and the current bell schedule. However, alternate options, such as keeping the current schedule with a later start time, are still possibilities, according to Principal Jacqueline McEvoy.
“The problem with the way we tried to change the bell schedule two years ago was that a large number of teachers didn’t vote, even though the issue was overwhelmingly important to students,” McEvoy said.
“Some teachers didn’t vote because they would have been fine with either keeping the current schedule or moving towards a new one, but in a yes/no voting system, not voting counts as a ‘no’ vote,” McEvoy said. “And we needed a supermajority of teachers to make a change.”
To remedy this issue, the committee is proposing a consensus gradient, in which people vote on a numerical scale representing such options as “I hate this idea,” “I could live with it,” and “This is the best idea ever,” according to McEvoy.
“We’re also going to be deciding both what a necessary critical mass to move forward is and what the spread of the votes has to be,” she said. “Is two-thirds of teachers voting ‘I could live with it’ good enough? Or would that be problematic if the remaining one-third were definitively on the ‘I hate this idea’ end?”
New tutorial period
Both new schedules have a period of time set aside for tutorial, which is essentially a study hall period in which students can do homework, work on group projects, meet with teachers, and make up tests and quizzes, biology teacher Elizabeth Brimhall said.
“The tutorial period is a really good idea,” English teacher Kirk Hinton said. “I had it when I was in high school. The problem comes with how you administer it.”
Because Paly needs to complete a certain number of instructional minutes per school year, tutorial period must count towards instructional minutes and therefore attendance must be taken, according to Hinton, adding that students will then be able to remain in the room or sign out and meet with teachers.
“We haven’t completely figured it out logistically yet, but that’s not our priority at the moment,” he said.
Students are excited for the new study hall period.
“I love it,” junior Diane Wu said. “There are so many distractions at home that students procrastinate and end up completing homework in their other classes. This is a good way to help solve that problem.”
Sophomore Nassim Fedel said, “If they just made school end earlier, I would just procrastinate and then start homework at the normal time. But with the tutorial period, I’m forced to start homework and get it out of the way.
“And for people without preps, it gives a valuable chance to meet with teachers because it’s often really hard to otherwise find a time,” Fedel added. “It’s also easier for athletes to make up work during school.”
Parents who were on the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Committee are less enthusiastic about what could just be additional Town and Country time.
“Parents question whether the tutorial period is necessary, and whether it can be managed effectively,” WASC Parent Lucy LaPier said.
Wu acknowledged that some people will use it to hang out, but she said that the majority, especially upperclassmen, would begin their homework.
“It’s their loss if some students want use it as additional Town and Country time,” junior Kristina Xiang agreed. “That’s not a reason that this privilege should be taken away from everyone.”
Diorio also said that if teachers set the right social atmosphere for productivity and work, tutorial would be a great asset.
“If all classrooms are somewhat quiet and people aren’t on Facebook or texting each other, then tutorial will be very successful,” Diorio said. “It’s all about designing and marketing it right.”
Proposed blocked seventh schedule
The blocked seventh schedule retains seven 50-minute periods on Monday, Tuesday and Friday, with school beginning at 8:05 a.m. and ending at 3:15 p.m. Wednesdays feature 90 minutes of the odd periods (first, third, fifth and seventh) and Thursdays have the even periods (second, fourth and sixth) with a 30-minute advisory after second period and a 30-minute tutorial after sixth period. Thursday’s end time of 2:45 p.m. is unique.
“A blocked seventh makes it easier planning-wise because teachers can plan for a block period rather than two split periods,” Hinton said. “Three activities that would take 20, 40, and then 20 minutes wouldn’t work because you wouldn’t be able to execute that with your seventh period class.”
Brimhall said, “As a science teacher, labs are especially difficult for my seventh period classes. I like to introduce the lab, do it, and then debrief it for 20 minutes at the end.”
“But in seventh period,” she continued, “I have to explain it one day, and they’ll have some extra time at the end, then rush them through the lab the next day and just barely squeeze in a five-minute debrief.”
Proposed four-day block schedule
The four-day block alternates between days of 90-minute odd periods and even periods. Second period is followed by a 55-minute tutorial on Tuesdays and a 50-minute advisory on Thursdays, allowing school to end at 2:30 p.m. on those days. On Friday, all seven periods meet for 50 minutes each.
Because the four-day block also has a blocked seventh period, it would capture all of the benefits of the former schedule while having fewer transitions between classes, but it has some disadvantages.
“Teachers see their students less often, which is problematic for classes like foreign language,” Hinton said. “Research shows that the frequency of seeing your class helps build vocabulary better than seeing them for longer periods of time on fewer days.”
McEvoy said, “There’s also the issue of getting teachers trained to teach multiple block periods a week. We need to be able to support our teachers to use 90 minutes of instructional time effectively through a combination of group work, individual work, lectures, and so forth.”
“It’s not just sticking two periods together, or you’ll get teachers that will just lecture for 90 minutes straight,” McEvoy continued.
A later start time versus an earlier end time
Both schedules offer a consistent start time of 8:05 a.m., although that may be pushed back later.
WASC parents unanimously think that a late start is better, according to LaPier.
“They want it to start even later than the currently proposed 8:05,” LaPier said. “Parents say 8:15 at the earliest, but preferably 8:30 or 8:45 a.m.”
Administrators are supportive of an even later start, but they have to balance a start time with an end time that meets the needs of Paly athletes, McEvoy said.
“I’m not a morning person and ideally school would start after 8:30 a.m.,” McEvoy said. “But the later the start, the more class time our athletes need to miss for games.”
LaPier is skeptical of the extent to which teachers and administrators emphasized the athletics issue.
“The standard reply to a late start is that there are so many spring athletes missing class, but that’s not supported by actual data,” LaPier said. “800 students may play sports but not all 800 go to every single meet and there’s not a meet every single Thursday of second semester. The athletic excuse is way exaggerated.”
“More sleep in the morning is more important than getting out early for sports,” she continued. “My daughter [senior Abby LaPier] is a spring athlete and she misses maybe five Thursdays in the entire second semester when she has to leave early for meets. This shouldn’t drive the whole schedule.”
Administrators maintained that students with sports were a significant consideration.
Diorio said, “We have close to 900 athletes; that’s almost half of our school. I would disagree with parents’ perception that we don’t have very many athletes missing class.”
Moreover, the administration may be less able to accommodate a seventh period prep for athletes if seventh period becomes blocked, Diorio added.
Some people are also not convinced that a later start time will give teenagers more total sleep time.
“We only get to sleep in for maybe 30 minutes, and some students would just go to bed later,” Xiang said.
Either students would not get to sleep in that much because the start time isn’t late enough, or it would be so late that it would push the end time to 4 p.m., Xiang said.
“[If school ended at 4 p.m.,] I would miss almost two full periods because we have to leave for swim meets before 2 p.m.,” Xiang said. “I’m sure this is the case for people who play other sports too.”
In contrast, other athletes are willing to sacrifice more missed class time for extra sleep in the morning.
“Starting school at 9 a.m. means I get more sleep, and missing class is only bad because I have to make up work,” Fedel said. “But, if I sleep more, I will be more energized to make up that work.”
“A teenager’s sleep ‘schedule’ is such that you naturally sleep at about 11 p.m. or midnight, and wake up around 8 or 8:30 a.m.,” Fedel added.
Student input
Given that teachers re-introduced this discussion to support student health, they are very interested in student input.
“We’ve set up an e-mail address [[email protected]] to receive feedback about the current proposals,” Brimhall said. “We’ve gotten some student responses but we definitely want more.”
McEvoy concurred, adding that voice messages, e-mails, announcements, and Naviance surveys would all help solicit student input.
“We’re finding that when students are interested in an issue, they’ll respond,” McEvoy said. “And students showed us two years ago that this [the bell schedule] is important.”
Open communication
Overall, faculty members overwhelmingly stress the importance of avoiding miscommunication between students, parents and staff members during this entire process.
“We’ll take into account what students want but we need to make sure that in the end, what’s decided is what’s best for them, and not because we didn’t listen to them,” Hinton said. “That piece needs to be communicated to the students.”
The teachers and administrators will make the final decision on next year’s schedule, Diorio said, but it will be done in the best interest of students.
McEvoy said, “Even if we only manage to push the start time to 8:15 a.m., that is an important symbolic change to the student body. It shows that we recognize what we should be changing, even if we are ultimately unable to do so.”
“Students need to know that they are being heard even if their desires are not what we do in the end,” Hinton said. “That goes for anything in the school.”
Leave feedback on this story with your opinion on the proposed bell schedules. We welcome all questions, suggestions, and comments regarding this important debate.
Note: Senior Abby LaPier, whose parent was quoted in this story, is an editor-in-chief of the Paly Voice.