Armed with notepads full of questions and comments, a few dozen parents attended the first scheduled community meeting last week to listen to Cherry Hill school district officials elaborate on the high school scheduling redesign plan.
The plan, which is set to begin the first day of school next fall, would transform students’ class schedules from a traditional day to a six-day rotation, most notably including longer class periods and a mandatory lunch and break period.
The district’s director of guidance, James Riordan, along with Cherry Hill West principal Joseph Meloche and Cherry Hill East principal John O’Breza, led the discussion and fielded questions from parents at the meeting.
The new scheduling increases class time to 52 minutes on the first four days of the rotation, with each subject meeting three of the four days.
Each student would also have a 25-minute lunch break before or after a 25-minute break, which is designed to let students meet with a teacher to discuss schoolwork and/or provide a structured time to meet with a clubs and activity advisors or teammates and coaches.
On days five and six of the rotation, students would attend four classes for 80 minutes each, with the same lunch and break schedule.
Currently, students attend eight class periods during the day, with 17 percent of students opting out of lunch to take eight academic classes.
Under the new schedule, every student will take a lunch period either from 10:48 to 11:13 a.m. or 11:17 to 11:42 a.m.
“The intent is to have students and staff take lunch and a break so there is an opportunity for everyone to enrich themselves through lunch, quiet time and activities,” Meloche said.
Students also are able to currently substitute any class for a lab period. The new schedule will allow students to only swap out study hall, music or physical education, in that order, to take a lab class.
Several parents at the meeting questioned why the district wanted to restrict lab substitutions, citing the importance of music and gym class.
“Lab science is mandated by the state, but the time devoted to it is up to the district,” Riordan said. “We are minimizing it by only being able to lab out of music and PE. We’re reducing 90 percent of lab outs.”
The new schedule will allow an option for seniors to leave early or elect for a study hall period if a student does not wish to take eight classes.
The redesign, named Setting a New TONE, which stands for time, opportunity, nourishment and enrichment, was initially discussed in 2009, Riordan said.
That year, teachers and administrators began to get the dialogue going about the potential opportunity to redesign the district’s high school scheduling. From there, Riordan said, stakeholders from each school formed focus groups to do research and discuss what the implications of new scheduling could mean for the district’s 3,300 high school students.
The hope in researching the redesign, Riordan said, was to see if the district could achieve consistency in the instructional day, while protecting time allotted for classes and adding structured breaks for students.
From there, the district began to work with Michael Rettig, founder of School Scheduling Associates and Susan Golder, also with the organization, which works with school districts across the country to help design school schedules aimed at maximizing instruction time and including engaging instructional activities.
The district worked with the school-scheduling consultants in 2010.
Last fall, the district stakeholders began to make visits near and far to see how other schools have transformed scheduling.
Administrators and staff visited Robbinsville High School in Mercer County, Mainland High School in Linwood near the shore, Ridgewood High School in North Jersey and Horace Greely High School in Chappaqua, N.Y.
Administrators also had a phone interview with Garnett Valley High School officials in Pennsylvania.
“We picked Robbinsville since we were not looking for block (scheduling). They opened as a block school and the teachers knew only that. We wanted not just to see a place that transitioned into it,” Riordan said.
The other schools proved to be indicative of different kinds of scheduling, Riordan said, including a school with an enrichment period during the middle of the day, a school with modified block scheduling, some that had utilized this method for years and some that were just beginning to make the transition.
O’Breza said about 20 staff members traveled with him to visit Mainland High School.
A few parents questioned how so many students could eat lunch at the same time and wondered how each high school could accommodate the influx of hungry students.
Since there are two periods during the day under the new scheduling that a student may be scheduled for lunch, half of West’s 1,600 students will eat lunch during a given period; half of East’s 2,200 students will eat lunch during a given period.
About 1,400 students shared the same lunch period at Mainland High School, O’Breza said.
“We saw problems, but we saw the good. We talked to students, administrators and teachers. There were more positives than negatives. Students were assuming more responsibility and wanted down time, social time, lunch and a chance to getting some things done,” O’Breza said. “I made it a point to bring skeptics with me. They came back believers.”
Riordan said the large lunch periods might present a problem in terms of where students actually eat, but said other schools have surprisingly seen a reduction in discipline needed at lunchtime.
“Twenty people did visit. We thought this would benefit students in Cherry Hill,” he said.
Another issue brought up during the meeting centered on the potential need for additional teachers.
If students opt to take eight classes, which the district estimates to be about 50 to 60 percent of students, more teachers may be needed.
If an additional 20 percent of students choose to take eight classes, the district may need to employ four to five staff members.
Teachers may also be reallocated, Riordan said, depending on elective classroom enrollments. He said the district routinely reallocates teachers depending on class sizes and sections and bases staffing on student course selection.
This year, a committee was formed to further study the new scheduling plan. Parent Teacher Associations also discussed the potential changes.
Recently, the committee of administrators, parents, staff, students and members of the Cherry Hill Education Association voted 23–1 in favor of moving forward with the new scheduling, Riordan said.
Susan Bastnagel, the district’s public information officer, said no board of education vote is needed to implement the new scheduling.
The board also discussed scheduling at the curriculum and instruction meeting and also at the board’s work session meeting, Bastnagel said.
A second community meeting was held Monday, Dec. 12, at Rosa Middle School to inform the community and allow for questions about the scheduling.
But some residents said they felt left in the dark about the whole process.
Meloche said he’s heard from teachers who have expressed their concern about the new scheduling and said he welcomes comments and questions from parents and community members on the changes.
“There will still be concerns, questions and things that have to be worked through. We think we’ll provide a much more authentic experience for students,” Meloche said.
Riordan said he understands the transition process may be challenging for parents and students, but said he plans on working with anyone who has questions or concerns about the shift.
“The biggest concern is change,” Riordan said. “Change is difficult, but not impossible.”
