Winslow High School students will have a new bell schedule to look forward to next year that will allow time to sleep in, as well as some interesting possibilities to develop new interests.
Principal Chris Gilmore said that the idea to change the schedule came after the North Central AdvancED Accreditation committee came to the school and offered some options to increase interest and availability for professional development time.
After the school formed a committee that reviewed schedule options and consulted with teachers, the final result was a schedule that is expected to benefit both teachers and students.
The Monday, Tuesday and Friday schedule will have students beginning at 7:45 a.m., except for students who take a zero hour, then it begins at 6:40 a.m., and finishes up the seventh hour at 3:45 p.m. Each class period will last one hour with a split lunch schedule, one beginning at 10:55 a.m. and one at 11 a.m., with both lasting 30 minutes.
On Wednesday students will get to sleep in for two hours as classes begin at 9:45 a.m. (or 9 a.m. for zero hour students) with the day ending at 3:25 p.m. and each of the classes lasting 40 minutes. The 30-minute time frame for lunch will remain the same.
On Thursday, the classes begin at 7:45 a.m. and end at 3:25 p.m. with 45-minute classes, with intervention classes for students with failing grades who need to catch up slated from 9:25 to 10 a.m. and again from 10:05 to 10:40 a.m. While those students are catching up, the other students will be taking part in enrichment classes during that same time.
According to Gilmore, the current schedule for professional development is not effective. “Our professional development time is at the end of the day and it doesn’t offer a lot of time. Teachers also take on a lot of extra work as coaches and other roles that made it difficult for them to take part. This way, it’s first thing in the morning when they’re fresh. We’re also putting it the day before intervention so that they will have an opportunity to implement what they learned right away,” explained Gilmore.
Another bonus to a later start on Wednesdays is that the students will get to have a late start. “I don’t think the students will mind sleeping in for a day, and we were having problems with kids wandering through town if we had an early release day. This will take care of that,” said Gilmore.
Having intervention on one day for an hour and 15 minutes instead of for 20 minutes each day will also help students settle into their work. “With 20 minutes a day the kids are barely getting into their work before the time is up; this will help them focus,” stated Gilmore.
Another problem that the school was having was when a class finished, the intervention students remained in class while the others went to the next one. Then new students came in with the intervention students, resulting in a lot of students for the teacher to work with at once.
Gilmore and Superintendent Lance Heister decided to create a solid block of time for intervention and during that time, allow the other students to take an enrichment class.
“We are going to talk with our teachers and see which ones would be interested in teaching a nine-week course in an interest of theirs. It could be archery, hiking, wood carving, whatever they like. We are also going to be reaching out to our retired teachers and members of the community to take part,” explained Gilmore.
According to Heister, this isn’t a new concept. They looked at other schools in the area in order to design their schedule, including Flagstaff, Coconino, Mogollon and Snowflake high schools.
All of the students will be required to sign up for an enrichment course. When a student falls behind and needs to take intervention, the hope is that the enrichment class will be an incentive for them to want to catch up so they can return to it. Another option will be to allow students to pursue dual-enrollment courses through Northland Pioneer College during that time or even use the time for ACT test prep.
The overall goal is to allow teachers time to take part in professional development while improving the lives of the students who attend the school. In addition, the new schedule only cuts instructional time by 10 minutes per week over this year’s schedule and although the time frame is tight, it will not affect the students involved in Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology (NAVIT).
Both Heister and Gilmore were impressed with North Central Accreditation AdvancED, with Gilmore noting, “They see the best practices taking place throughout the state and make insightful evaluations. By doing this we are able to imbed our culture into our scheduling.”
