Changes For Scheduling High School Students

The one reason why schools should stay at the same times is because Students who participate in sports, or other extracurricular activities typically meet for several hours after school. If school times are later, that means that these activities would continue later on in the day. This would make it difficult for students to participate and still have enough time to study, finish homework, participate in social activities, get to work on time and still get to bed at a decent

If an hour and half of school were added every day, students would miss after school activities. Students will miss the fun extracurricular activities. and students won’t get the exercise they need.

Adding just an extra ten minutes to each class, the new schedule would create the potential for students to have more homework time, lab time, learning time, and/or valuable free time to read for pleasure, relax with music, draw, etc. (Hadfield). Especially as students get older and more involved in extracurriculars and rigorous academic courses, the need for any spare moment to get assignments done, study, or even sleep increases. When this time is unavailable or extremely hard to get, students are more likely to fall asleep in class, miss school due to illness, misbehave, cheat, hand in incomplete assignments, or drop out altogether. The same is largely true for teachers. The more homework turned in by students, the more grading has to be done by teachers who are already exhausted from a long, often repetitive day of work. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the fact that this extra time should not be used to cram in larger quantities of learning standards or homework problems, but rather to enhance the quality of the already demanding school regulations that are in schools

In today's society, most people desire success. They want to attend a respected college, earn exceptional grades, get a wonderful job, and make a lot of money. However, the road to success starts before all of those accomplishments can happen. This journey begins in the classroom. In the classroom, over 25% of all high-school students fall asleep one or more times a week (Mayer-Hohdahl 1). Why does this happen? Schools have sleepy students because of their early start times. "Starting high school early is probably one of the worst things you can do as far as timing the day, as far as adolescents being alert or ready" (Wooley 2). This is a serious problem in high schools all across the nation. Students are tired, and teachers are

What is your least favorite class, the one you dread most? Picture yourself walking into that class, taking a seat, and watching the clock move slowly as you suffer through the next 90 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly. Imagine being stuck in your least favorite class for an hour and a half! This is a reality that many high school students experience every day. It is block scheduling. “Unlike traditional bell schedules - which typically comprise six to eight class periods per day, lasting anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes - block schedules contain just four daily class periods, with each one lasting an average of 90 minutes” (Block Scheduling in Schools 1). Although designed to increase student achievement, block schedules carry a number of disadvantages that make them an inadequate method for offering high school students a successful learning environment. Despite its few benefits, block scheduling works in direct conflict with most human attention spans, creates more scheduling problems than it solves, and lacks any solid evidence of improving student learning. In a world where educational practices come and go, block scheduling is a fad that should never have arrived in the first place.

Having seven classes one after the other, about forty-five minutes each is stressful. It's difficult to make all your classes a priority as it's a tight schedule. You have to worry about what you're doing in seven classes EVERY DAY. A report by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning advised: “schools to be less rigid in how they use time and urged the use of block scheduling and an extended school year”. It is important for schools to use the class hours wisely and effectively, not shoving in as much as they can into small timed classes. Advocates of block-scheduling say “longer classes create more opportunities for hands-on lessons and allow students to concentrate on their work for longer stretches without being interrupted by the ringing of a bell”. Allowing students more time to work puts less pressure of being ‘finished by the bell’. They also say less time is wasted. Block schedules reduce the time students use walking class to class, and the time it takes to get settled into the day's lesson. Once you decrease this time wasted and increase the learning period, students will feel less stress. They will have fewer things to worry about, as will the

In contrast to a traditional school schedule, a block schedule consists of different variations, such as A/B and 4x4 schedules. In an A/B schedule, classes meet every other day for an extended period of time. Students take eight classes throughout the year, taking four classes on A Days and alternating the other four on B Days.“The A days would be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, etc. Each class period

You could also have an activity outside of school that is on the weekdays. What if you had to go and spend overnight?. You also wouldn’t be able to do that. In addition you would have more homework and obviously more school days. Even if school was year round, students would still forget things because we are learning so much.

If the times changed now, parents would have to accommodate their work schedule to getting their kids to and out of school. If the time schedule length stays the same, students will get out of school later in the day and may not have time to do extracurricular activities. The problem is that schools do not want to reform yet due to its effect on other’s daily lives. The massive change would only cause problems as of now.

According to a U.S. News report, the top two schools in California are Whitney High School and Stockton Collegiate International Secondary School. When I looked over their schedules, I found that both of these schools follow a block schedule and, while it may seem like a distant goal, these schools represent the possible advancement of the LCHS district if given the opportunity to explore the block schedule. Dr. Nesa Sasser of the Hearst Newspaper, recently wrote an article about the benefits and downfalls of the block schedule. She wrote that, by starting a block period schedule, teachers will be able to plan lessons more effectively, connect with their students on a deeper level, and there will be better time management. During block periods, teachers become less limited in how they plan their lesson. They are able to go in depth about concepts that are important and are given time to give examples to further the students’ comprehension of these topics. Using these examples, teachers are then able to see where the class is falling short, and reteach confusing lessons, allowing for a greater understanding of the overall subject. By decreasing the amount of classes per day, students would then be able to focus on the homework they are given for their next classes, reducing the amount of homework they have to complete and the information that needs to be learned for that specific night. Students will also be able to go to sleep earlier, increasing overall health and focus during class, providing long term

Educational debates are a widespread in today’s society. Currently, one of the largest debates in education is the debate of whether schools should stay with the traditional school calendar or change to a year-round calendar. The main focus of the debate is centered around the idea that using the year-round calendar will provide kids with a more consistent learning schedule, which in turn creates better grades within the school and cuts back on summer learning loss. Year-round calendar and traditional calendar are far different. Traditional school calendar provides ten weeks of summer break and year-round calendar provides a shorter summer break but more frequent breaks throughout the year. The frequent breaks provide families the

However, when it comes right down to it, it is all about the test scores. Whether it is standardized tests or just regular tests in school, four day school weeks are just better when it comes to both. ACT is a major standardized test that can directly show how ready a student is for a post-secondary education. Students that took the ACT one year with a five day school week had an average score of 18.7 on the ACT. The next year, the same school switched to a four day school week the following year and saw the average score rise to 20 (Chmelynski). From 10 random school districts those that had a four day school week versus a five day school week had better average standardized test scores (Yarbrough and Gilman). It isn’t just the standardized test that see improvements. Regular in-class test scores have also improved as a result of the four-day school week. In-fact studies show that test scores in all major subject areas have improved drastically (Yarbrough and

It's 6 am, still pitch black outside, you can't even hear the sound of birds chirping, and yet we as students are forced to fight our body clocks in order to get to class on time. Every morning thousands of students across the nation are awaked by the dreadful sound of their alarm clocks. It's no secret that not getting the sufficient amount of sleep can lead to many problems, especially in teens. For that reason, both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control both recommend moving middle-and-high-school start times to 8:30 am, or later. Yet most recent studies show that during the year 2011-12 only 17.7% of the US’s public middle and high schools met the quota, and in over 40 US states 75% percent of schools begin earlier than 8:30.

The time frame of the new school change would be 9 week quarters, 3 classes per quarter and a three hour core class in the morning. We already have a way to early of a time to start school for kids. It is a proven scientific statistic that kids’ brains do not start functioning and are ready to learn until ten a.m atleast. Sitting in one class right in the morning for three hours is not going to help that cause either. Sitting and focusing for three hours

My school is considering going to a year round schedule currently, students have core classes on A or B days for the entire school year or a full semester. The school year starts in September and ends in June. I am against this way of schooling because three hour class periods are too long if you want to stay interested, its more information kids will forget, and finally they will be out of school more often thereby making them more of a threat to society than they already.