Major Findings from the Michigan Visits

Team members learned a great deal about the trimester during one-day visits to North Farmington and Seaholm High Schools, two public schools that could serve as regional benchmarks to Homestead.  Major findings/take-aways include the following:

Curriculum Pacing and Preparation for Trimester:

·    According to teachers and administrators, teachers need to have time to prepare for the transition to the trimester schedule.  Instead of trying to simply shorten or cram the curriculum to accommodate the trimester, teachers need to reconsider and redesign their courses, outcomes, and pacing guides.

·    Curriculum breadth was not as extensive when compared to the schools’ previous block-style schedules, in which classes met three times a day (once for 50 minutes and twice for 90 minutes); some teachers reported having to put aside specific elements of curricula that were now considered non-essential in the trimester arrangement.  According to teachers, teaching in the trimester feels more quickly paced compared to the modified block.

·    At both schools, the decision for fall implementation of the trimester schedule was made in December of the previous school year; teachers and administrators felt that Homestead’s 14-month timeline was sufficient to prepare for this change.

Seventy-minute Class Periods:

·    Classes did not feel long to team members, teachers or students.

·    Teachers reported having time for two or possibly three cognitive sets/distinct activities in a period.

·    Regardless of content area, grade, or ability level of course, students were engaged for the full class period.

Student Reaction to the Trimester:

·    Students of all grade levels were largely positive about the system. 

·    Students often discussed their appreciation for being able to take more core or non-core elective classes and explained that they usually had no problem getting what they wanted in terms of course selection.  When conflicts in scheduling do arise, students make choices, just as they do now at Homestead.

·    Students did not have concerns/worries about the strength or depth of their relationships with teachers.  Often, they discussed that 70 minutes of everyday contact provides excellent opportunities for relationship-building. 

·    Students discussed their feeling that the length of class periods affords them the opportunity to ask questions and have them answered to their satisfaction.

·    Students did not express concern or negative feelings about the common occurrence of having a different teacher for each trimester of a two-trimester course like Algebra or Biology.  Many students explained that they like this variety.

Curriculum Alignment Between/Among Teachers:

·    Per teachers and the principal, curriculum alignment was improved to implement the trimester; that alignment has gotten much tighter over time.  Generally, teachers of common courses meet at least once a week to work on alignment.

·    Students explained the importance of alignment between/among teachers and were aware of that alignment in the system.

Impact on Achievement:

·    Regarding Advanced Placement

o   AP enrollment, participation in exams, and passing rate were not significantly changed by the move to the trimester schedule.  At Seaholm High School, AP participation is at its highest level in school history, as is the school-wide pass rate.

o   AP teachers often hold before, during or after-school review sessions for AP courses that end following the second trimester (late March).  Students explained that they need to be more self-disciplined when studying for these AP exams. 

o   Both high schools run two and three-trimester AP courses.  In both schools, all calculus courses are three-trimester courses.  The schools were inconsistent in which other AP courses were taught over three trimesters.  At North Farmington, fewer than one-third of all AP courses meet for three trimesters; at Seaholm, half of all AP courses are three trimesters in length.

·    Regarding ACT:

o   Scores have remained consistent after implementation of the trimester schedule.  Seaholm continues to rank number one in its county, a region filled with high-quality public schools, in average ACT composite score.

o   Per Michigan law, all juniors are required to take the ACT in March.

Gaps in Teaching/Learning Between the First and Third Trimesters:

·    According to students, teachers sometimes spend up to two weeks providing intermittent review to accommodate gaps between first and third trimesters.  Some other students reported that such reviews occur for no more than a week.

·    As anticipated, teachers and students reported some dip in student retention between first and third trimesters.  Many teachers were not overly-expressive about this concern.

·    At both schools, teachers and administrators explained that after two weeks in a course that meets during the third trimester, it is nearly impossible to determine which students just took the first half of the course and which students experienced the mid-year gap.

·    At North Farmington, average student grades in the second half of a course were the lowest when students took the first half of a course in trimester #2 and the second half in trimester #3.  Students’ second term grades were the highest when they took the first half of a course in trimester #1 and the second half in trimester #2.  Students experiencing the gap (taking the first half of a course in trimester #1 and the second half in trimester #3) did not have the lowest average grades in the second half of the course.

Reactions from Michigan Site Visits

Late last week a team of Homestead faculty members, along with a district-level administrator, a School Board member and me, visited two high-performing high schools in Michigan.  Both schools, Seaholm in the Birmingham School District and North Farmington in the Farmington Hills School District, are in their fourth year of implementing the five-period trimester schedule.  Currently, over one-third of all public high schools in Michigan are organized on the trimester.

The visits went off as planned, with team members having open access to administrators, support staff, students, school board members, counselors and teachers in the host schools.  On both one-day visits, team members conducted spontaneous and scheduled one-on-one and/or group interviews with students and job-alike peers, visited classrooms, heard from the schools' principals, and learned about student performance data.  Team members asked page upon page of questions and took extensive notes; the visits were truly rich learning experiences, ones that exeeded all of our expectations. 

As we knew before scheduling the school visits, many high schools in Michgan transitioned to the trimester schedule in response to one or both of two conditions:  revised state-mandated graduation requirements and/or significant budget reductions.  Faculty members and administrators at both Seaholm and North Farmington were open about the fact that had circumstances not changed, each school would still be on its previous schedule (a seven-period modified block schedule in which classes met three times weekly, once for 50 minutes and twice for 90 minutes).  The transition to the trimester was driven by necessity, not pure preference.  As such, we expected some if not many people--especially those people still struggling to adjust to this change--to express mixed feelings about the trimester.  As anticipated, we learned, as the saying goes, the good, the bad, and the ugly about the schedule during our visits.

On Friday of this week, members of the site visit team will share their findings with the HSST in greater detail.  Out of respect for that group and its work, I am not providing any of that information here until after Friday's meeting.  Nonetheless, I do know that members of the site visit team have been sharing informaton with students and teachers regularly.  Over the course of my day today, for example, a number of teachers and counselors asked me about what I learned last week and about my reactions to what I saw and heard.  I am confident that these inquiries were made to all other team members and will continue to be made in the days ahead. 

While I will refrain from sharing details from the visit for the time-being, I will say that at the end of the trip all members of the team were informally polled, being asked one question: "Given what you learned over the past two days, should the five-period trimester remain a schedule of interest for the HSST?"  While some people's opinions were stronger than others, all team members agreed that the trimester should continue to be investigated closely.  It remains a schedule of high interest.

On Friday, the HSST will formalize next steps in the study process.  Those next steps are all but sure to include two additional site visits.  Those separate one-day visits will be to Neenah High School and West DePere High School, two solid schools in Wisconsin that currently implement the trimester, Neenah for the past 15 years and West DePere for the past seven.  Unlike many of the schools in Michigan, Neenah and West DePere moved to the trimester schedule purely based on research, study and preference.  They were not driven to the schedule by outside forces; as such, the visits are likely to have somewhat of a different tone than those that occurred in Michigan last week.  Still, I expect a balanced appraisal of the trimester schedule and its impact on teaching and learning.

In later posts, I will provide details about the major findings and take-aways from the Michigan visits.

Details About One of the Site Visits

Below, please find the agenda for our group's upcoming visit to North Farmington High School on February 10; a similar agenda is being developed for our February 11 visit to Seaholm High School:

7:45 a.m.  Welcome/Meet and Greet/Intro Comments:

“Trimesters at a Glance”…Rick Jones, Principal

Location: Media Center

8:15 a.m.  Break-out Sessions by Job-alike Groups:

**Board of Education…Howard Wallach and Priscilla Brouillette

**Building Administration…Rick Jones

**Faculty

     English…Kristina Avant and Parker Salowich

     Social Studies…Jim Demko and Derek Day

     Science…Dave Ruehl

     Special Education…Chris DeYonke

     Math…Jeff Simpson

     World Language…Lisa Diponio

     Counseling…Lynn Maher

     Music…Mike Yoskovich and Shari Jaffurs

     Technology…Steve Deeb

9:00 a.m. Classroom Observations:

Technology (Autos):  Dave Verbeke

Science (Physics):  Todd Hecker

English (Honors Eng 10):  Tim Carruthers

Math (Statistics):  Jill Gordon

Social Studies (Econ Reg 9):  Dan Chomet

World Languages (Spanish III):  Lisa DiPonio

Music (Symphony Band):  Mike Yoskovich

Special Education (Eng 11/team teaching):  Chris DeYonke

                   

10:15 a.m Early Lunch

Location:  Media Center

11:00 a.m. Subject Area Break-out Conversations

Location:  Media Center

  **Tech…Dave Verbeke

  **Math…Gary Umlauf

  **Science…Peggy Najarian

  **Social Studies…Todd Schultz

  **English/Journalism…Nikki Schueller

  **WorldLanguages…Elias Khalil

  **Music…Peter Tolias

  **Special Education…Kim Collins and Pat Jordan

11:30 a.m.  Q & A with Students (Six per Grade Level)

Location:  Media Center

12:00 p.m.  SupportingTrimesters

Location:  Media Center

  **FPS Data on Trimesters…Jon Manier, Director of Curriculum

  **Support Services: Building School Culture, Tutorials, Professional Development, etc.

                  Dee Ann Lacy, Assistant Principal                        

  **Student Scheduling Concerns…Counseling Department

  **Building the Master Schedule…Phil Pittman, Assistant Principal; Mark Wilson, District

                 Director of Instruction

  **LINK (Ninth Grade Transitions)…Kevin Ozar

  **Drop-in on Classes (optional for any team members) 

1:00 p.m.  Reflection/Debriefing 

2:00 p.m.  Closing Q & A 

The Michigan Trip: Why and How?

Recently, some people have asked both how and/or why members of the faculty are visiting benchmark high schools in Michigan next week. 

Regarding why the trip was organized, a major change in a school's schedule like moving from a seven-period semester schedule to a five-period trimester schedule represents a fundamental reconsideration of how the business of education is done.  It cannot and should not be taken lightly.  Out of respect for the magnitude of this possible change, school officials and HSST members believe that seeing this schedule in action and engaging in meaningful dialogue with stakeholders in top-notch schools that use the 3x5 is an essential component of our study and consideration process.

When MTSD moved to the six-period day three years ago, that decision was made for budgetary reasons alone.  Research into the most educationally sound means for reducing faculty staffing costs was not done;  questions about the long-term impact of that schedule change may have been posed or even discussed but they were never closely studied.  Today, we are doing the type of study that should have occurred several years ago but that did not for several reasons.  The schedule that the HSST recommends this spring (assuming that it recommends a change and that the change can be negotiated with the School Board and teachers union) will remain in place at Homestead for the next many years.  We need to do this work right, being thoughtful, diligent, and attentive to all relevant details.

Regarding the question of financing the trip, money for the site visits is coming from three sources:  federal Title II dollars (money that districts must earmark for staff development and training), the annual Staff Development budget at the district level, and the annual substitute budget.  The funds for this trip are existing dollars in the 2010-2011 budget.  As an aside, please know that school and district officials are doing everything possible to conduct this business in the most financially responsible manner.