Cullman High School students can expect a major schedule overhaul when the 2009-2010 school year begins.

The Cullman City School Board recently approved a new schedule for the high school, which will change the current three semester trimester system to a more common two semester system. A switch to seven period days — up from the current five period days — is also part of the proposal.

How does it work?

Though the concept is mostly based on a seven period schedule, it does include some modifications.

One change will be a slightly longer school day — moving the end from approximately 3:05 p.m. to 3:14 p.m.

This will be countered by dismissing students at 2 p.m. Wednesday and 2:45 on Thursday.

Faculty will be required to stay for the extra time, which will be used as mandatory professional development hours.

“This will allow us to have embedded professional development time every week for our teachers,” Phillips said.

On Wednesday and Thursday, students will attend half of their classes each day — which will allow longer classroom times for labs and projects, Phillips said.

“On Wednesday, only second, fourth and sixth periods meet,” Phillips explained. “On Thursday, only first, third, fifth and seventh periods meet. These are one and a half hour classes.”

Even with the changes, instructional time for students should actually make an increase, CHS faculty member Janice Cook added.

“The schedule under consideration has 8,842 instructional minutes for one class period for the full academic year (180 days),” she noted via e-mail. “The current trimester schedule has 8,496 instructional minutes for one class period for two trimesters.”

Reasons

for the change

Cullman High School Principal Sheila Phillips said the benefits of the new schedule are varied.

The student transfer process should be simpler with the new schedule, Phillips said, since the majority of area schools use a seven-period semester schedule.

“We run into that problem a lot, because students aren’t always able to match their credits,” she said.

Under the new system, students will consistently have the same classes each semester — as opposed to the trimester, where students could have a semester between two parts of the same course.

“There will be fewer starts and stops this way,” Phillips said. “It will narrow things down from three stops to two, and provide more continuity of academic curriculum. So, this should correct that.”

Fifteen-year-old Abbie Knight, a sophomore at the school, said she believes the new system will be an improvement.

“I think it (the new schedule) will be beneficial,” she said. “Because, sometimes (with the trimester) you can have only a few core classes at once (per trimester). So, I think we’ll pay better attention with the new schedule.”

The ‘Bearcat Period’

Another major change is the addition of a special weekly period, called the “Bearcat Period.” This period will be used for assemblies, announcements, club meetings and any other weekly event that detracts from instructional time, Phillips said.

“We will have assemblies, make-up tests, tutoring, picture taking — just anything that distracts from class time,” she said. “It will all be combined into that one, weekly period, to get it out of the way. The teachers said they need it ... and every student will have something to do and somewhere to be.”

Feedback

Knight said she and other students support the proposal, noting it will likely be a change for the better.

“I think it may be kind of confusing at first, but in the end I think it will be really beneficial,” she said. “I think not having some classes everyday will be good, so we don’t get so distracted.”

Phillips said the new schedule should also be less stressful for students and faculty.

“I think at the end of next year, we’ll all give a sigh of relief,” she said. “We won’t be trying to put so much content into such a short amount of time.”

Knight agreed that the new schedule should be smoother than the trimester system.

“I don’t think it will be as hectic,” she said. “When Ms. Phillips first told us about it, my entire lunch table thought it was a cool idea. It will be less boring.”

Other notes

With statewide education budget cuts recently announced, Phillips said a positive aspect of the new schedule is that it will not require any new teachers.

“With this, we can continue with the same number of faculty,” she said. “If we stayed on our current schedule, we would probably need (to hire) more teachers.”

The concept for the new approach came out of more than a year of study, Phillips said. A committee of teachers was formed, which spent time looking at other successful systems to see which schedules they use.

“This schedule is similar to what Spain Park High School has,” Phillips said. “Most of the top ten (ranked by test scores) schools use a semester system.”

Phillips also noted that the proposed schedule is still developing, and some minor changes could still be made.

‰ Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 225.