1. Why is a schedule change for 2012-2013 being considered?
Last spring, the School Board and teachers association agreed to open the question of the high school schedule in the 2011-2012 school year. Concerns were continually raised about the lack of study/process that preceded the move to the current school schedule, which was implemented three years ago, and about the sustainability of this schedule in increasingly challenging financial times. When the Homestead Schedule Study Team (HSST) began meeting in October, the group affirmed three criteria for a new schedule: (1) it should enable professional collaboration among teachers, (2) it should relieve some of the burdens associated with the current seven-period schedule, and (3) it should enable the maintenance or improvement of student achievement. The HSST has been operating under the School Board’s requirement that any proposed schedule is cost-neutral, meaning that it does not require the hiring of additional faculty or staff.
2. When and how will the question of moving to the trimester schedule be made?
If the HSST supports a move to the trimester when it votes on March 30, parents, students and faculty members will have chances to provide input during meetings to be held the week of April 11. Parent information and feedback meetings will occur during daytime (1:00 on April 12) and evening (7:00 on April 12 and 13) time slots. After considering input from the HSST, parents, students and faculty members, Homestead Principal Brett Bowers and MTSD Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Eric Dimmitt will report to the School Board in May; that report could include a recommendation to move to the trimester in 2012-2013. If that recommendation is made, follow-up Board discussions would take place in June and July. The Board of Education would be asked to act on the administrative recommendation in July. Only School Board action can change the schedule.
3. Who is on the HSST?
The 21-member Homestead Schedule Study Team is comprised of the Homestead High School principal; the MTSD Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment; two School Board members; three parents; two students, a freshman and a sophomore; a guidance counselor; the 6-12 curriculum specialist/Pursuit coordinator; and 10 teachers representing the English, Math, Science, Social Studies, World Language, Special Education, Music and Allied Arts Departments.
4. How and when can parents provide input on the schedule decision?
As mentioned above, information and feedback sessions with Mr. Bowers and/or Mr. Dimmitt will occur in April if the trimester concept is approved at the committee level on March 30. Parents are also encouraged to attend School Board meetings around this topic, including the April 18 working Board meeting and the regular School Board meetings in May, June and July.
5. Will students lose choices when developing their schedules in the trimester?
In the current semester schedule, students have the ability to earn up to seven credits per year. In the trimester schedule, students can earn up to 7.5 credits each school year. So, many students will be able to take more courses over a single year than they do now. Some students who choose to take multiple three-trimester courses might find that they can take slightly fewer courses in a year than in the current schedule.
6. Would a move to the trimester schedule have a negative effect on students’ college admissions prospects?
Based on the research conducted over the past several months, no evidence of a trimester schedule negatively impacting college admissions can be found. If a move to the trimester schedule occurs, the school will send two profiles to colleges and universities when submitting student transcripts; one profile will explain the previous semester schedule and the other will explain the current trimester.
7. In the trimester schedule, who would determine which courses meet for three trimesters?
The question of which current year-long courses would be taught over two or three trimesters would be answered administratively. Building and district-level administrators would make these decisions with input from teachers and after reviewing information about the scope and sequence of current courses. Most current yearlong courses would be taught over two trimesters.
8. Could a student have two different teachers for each half of a current year-long course like Algebra or Biology?
Yes, students could have different teachers for each half of a two-trimester course, as happens occasionally in the current semester schedule. Teachers understand that curriculum alignment work would need to occur between the time of the schedule change decision and the fall of 2012 to ensure that all teachers of the same course are teaching to the same outcomes and covering the same essential content, ensuring that students could transition smoothly from one teacher to another.
9. Does having two teachers for a course have a negative impact on students?
In talking with dozens and dozens of students who currently learn in the trimester, school and district officials heard few concerns or complaints about the schedule. Regarding teacher changing for a two-trimester course, most students explained that they like seeing more teachers and experiencing more teaching styles in a given year and throughout their high school career. They also appreciate having a fresh start with a new teacher if they feel that the working relationship with a previous teacher was not as strong as they had hoped. Students expressed no concerns about being able to develop strong and meaningful relationships with teachers in the trimester schedule.
10. Would music classes run for three trimesters?
It is likely that all band, choir and orchestra courses would run for three trimesters if the schedule was adopted. Because of the way that music staffing is allocated at the high school level, allowing all music courses to run for three trimesters would not affect the overall cost of staffing. If music courses run for three trimesters, a music student would still have space in his/her schedule to earn up to six additional credits. In the current semester schedule, a student who takes a music course can earn six additional credits as well. Finally, because the balance of sound for a performing group can be substantially altered with the addition or loss of vocalists/instrumentalists, three trimester music courses ensure the quality of those ensembles.
11. Would all AP courses run for three trimesters?
No, most AP courses would not run for three trimesters. Instead, like almost all other yearlong courses in the semester schedule, most AP courses would run for two trimesters. Because of the scope of the curriculum for some especially intense AP courses, certain ones may need to run for three trimesters. A three-trimester AP course would be the exception and not the rule.
12. How will students who take two-trimester AP courses remain ready for the AP exams in early-mid May?
Administrators are committed to providing a structural solution to addressing the gap between the end of a two-trimester AP course and the AP exams. This solution will consist of some form of resource or student assistance period embedded in the school day. During that time, which would occur possibly twice weekly, AP teachers would be able to hold review/refresher sessions for interested students. Any trimester schedule recommendation will include a recommendation for some sort of resource/student assistance period. Options for when and how this time would be offered to students and teachers is currently being researched and discussed.
13. Can students remain prepared for an AP test even with a gap between the end of a course and the exam?
Local and regional-level research around this topic illustrates that students can be highly successful on AP exams even when experiencing an instructional gap. For example, students at Homestead currently take AP Micro Economics during first semester only. They experience a gap of almost four months between the end of the course and the AP exam. Nonetheless, students historically perform extremely well on the exam; over the past 16 years, 891 Homestead students have taken the AP Micro Economics exam, those students passing the test over 82% of the time. In 2007, 93% of students passed the exam. At Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Michigan (a regional benchmark school and district), students have set school records for AP exam success since the school moved to the trimester schedule four years ago.
14. Will the trimester schedule have a negative effect on AP enrollments?
Administrators do not believe that a move to the trimester will result in a decline in AP course enrollments. When representatives from Homestead and MTSD visited two high-performing trimester high schools in Michigan, North Farmington and Seaholm, officials from those schools shared that their AP enrollments and percentages of tests passed have increased since moving to the trimester. Currently, four trimester schools in Michigan outrank Homestead in the Newsweek ranking of top public high schools in the country. Each of those schools has a higher AP test participation rate than Homestead, indicating that students can maintain a commitment to AP in the trimester schedule.
15. Would any non-AP and non-music courses run for three trimesters?
Yes, it is possible that some other courses could run for three trimesters. While three-trimester courses need to be included only sparingly in the schedule, certain academic and curricular needs may necessitate this allowance.
16. Would students be allowed to take study hall in the trimester schedule?
Yes, students would be allowed to enroll in up to one period of study hall per trimester. That study hall has the ability to be seasonal (fall, winter, spring) to correspond to athletic/activity seasons.
17. How would special education and other learning support services be offered in the trimester schedule?
As is the case in the current schedule, students will still have access to study hall alternatives like Special Education Guided Study classes and placement in the Academic Success Center.
18. How are students affected by the gap in instruction that can occur between two halves of a course in the trimester?
In the trimester, students take the two parts of a current yearlong course in either trimesters 1 and 2, 2 and 3, or 1 and 3. When investigating high schools currently teaching on the trimester, data could not be found to illustrate that students who take a course in trimesters 1 and 3 (meaning that they experience a mid-year gap) suffer academically. In fact, North Farmington High School, which has been on the trimester for four years and has gathered detailed grade-related data over that time, found that students who experience the gap actually earn better grades for the second half of a course compared to students who take the course in trimesters 2 and 3.
19. What about students who finish a course at the end of trimester 2 in one year and don’t start the next course in sequence until the beginning of trimester 2 the following year?
This gap can exist in the trimester schedule. Some courses that students take in a particular sequence, Biology and Chemistry, for example, while taught back-to-back, are not necessarily tightly sequenced in terms of the content of the curricula. So, a gap in those courses is not as concerning. In courses for which that sequencing is tighter, World Language courses, for example, students who experienced difficulty in one level of a course would be given special consideration for taking the next level beginning in trimester 1 the following year. This approach is currently employed in successful high schools that teach on the trimester or 4x4 block schedules, each of which creates a gap in instruction like this.
20. How would curricula be redesigned to correspond to the instructional minutes and number of course meeting days that exist in the trimester?
Teachers and administrators have been discussing the need to reconsider curricula if the move to the trimester is made. If the schedule change occurs, curricula need to be redesigned to be viable within the parameters of the trimester. Some topics that are currently covered in certain courses, topics that are extensions and not necessarily the focal elements of courses, may need to be put aside or taught as enrichment for select students in this schedule. Teachers would spend the time between the schedule change decision and the implementation of the new schedule preparing for this change. In the trimester approach, teachers must embrace the concept of teaching for mastery, promoting retention of knowledge and skills, and emphasizing depth over breadth. A move to the trimester schedule gives teachers and administrators the opportunity to examine our current curricula, re-affirm it, and make changes and revisions that can improve student learning.
21. How will questions of what gets taught in trimester courses be determined?
To ensure that the narrowing and enriching of the curriculum focuses on the appropriate knowledge and skills, teachers and administrators will rely on the new Common Core standards for English and Math. Those standards, developed in cooperation with and endorsed by ACT, were recently adopted in Wisconsin. Further, the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks can guide decision-making in some other core areas. In and outside the core, the Standards for Success research project (sponsored by the Association of American Universities and the Pew Charitable Trust) will provide additional insight and guidelines. In courses that emphasize hands-on work, teachers may find themselves able to expand the scope of their curricula based on the added work time that students have with fewer set-up and take-down experiences between work sessions.
22. Are 70-minute periods too long to sustain student focus and attention?
When site visit teams observed classes in three trimester schools this spring, all observers noticed high levels of student engagement and focus throughout class periods. These observations were consistent regardless of the content area or academic level of course. Consistently, students learning in the trimester explained that they do not find class periods to be too lengthy. When teaching in an extended period like that offered in the trimester, teachers must embrace a commitment to providing multiple engagements with the content in a single class period. Unless conducting a lab or doing some other hands-on project, Homestead teachers would be required to include at least three engagements/two transitions per period; at least one of those engagements must include class-wide verbal communication from students. If the trimester schedule is approved, faculty learning and staff development time over the next two summers and the 2011-2012 school year will focus on lesson design in the trimester. And, teachers will have opportunities to learn and practice different instructional strategies that they can incorporate into their lessons to diversify their instructional approaches as needed.
23. How would final exams and exam exemptions work in the trimester schedule?
Different trimester schools conduct final exams differently. Administrators are currently investigating options for how final exams might run in a trimester setting. As the current exam exemption policy is based on the seven-period semester schedule, that policy would need to be reconsidered and revised before the trimester schedule is implemented.
24. Isn’t Neenah High School moving away from the trimester schedule due to financial constraints? How can MTSD afford this schedule?
Neenah High School, which has been on the trimester schedule for the past 15 years, is moving away from that schedule after this year. Finances drove that decision, not parent, student, administrator or teacher preference. In Neenah, teachers only teach 10/15 classes per year (four classes in one trimester and three classes in the other two trimesters). At Homestead, teachers would teach 12/15 classes per year (four classes in each of the three trimesters). While Neenah tried to adjust the number of classes that teachers teach each year so as to realize financial savings and maintain the trimester schedule, they were unable to reach an agreement between their school board and teachers union. As such, starting next year, teachers at Neenah High School will continue to teach 10 classes per year, but they will do so in a seven-period semester schedule, meaning that they will teach 10/14 classes instead of 10/15 classes, resulting in the need for fewer teachers.
