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After reviewing four proposals to add instructional minutes to the school’s daily schedule for next year, the principal has chosen the one most similar to the school’s current mod schedule.
After meeting with union representatives and department heads on March 24, principal Andrew Ishibashi chose Proposal B, the modified modular schedule presented to the faculty on March 11.
Ishibashi explained that he decided it was better to tweak the current schedule rather than adopt a completely different one. “Our current mod schedule is broken because it doesn’t have enough instructional minutes,” he said. “When something is broken, you don’t just throw it away. You try to fix it.”
Although the science department had initially supported Proposal C, the modified block schedule, they are willing to work with the modified modular schedule, science department head Dacotah Swett said. “The science department is pretty flexible,’ she said. “We like to think of ourselves as experimental. We don’t want to be afraid to try new things.”
Swett also stated that the new schedule would not require dramatic adjustments for the science department since all science classes are currently B/C code. “This is perhaps a compromise, and is not a huge change,” Swett said. “All of us are going to figure it out and make this school a better place.”
The language department did not support the block and modified block schedules, according to world language department head Dorothy Ong. “It’s more educationally sound to meet with our students every day,” she said.
The modified modular schedule is most similar to the current schedule. According to the proposal, classes meet everyday. Each A-code class will be 45 minutes, five minutes longer than they currently are. All passing periods will be 10 minutes long, and swing mods will be twenty minutes long, including the passing periods before and after them. To increase instructional time, this schedule will require some departments to increase the number of B/C-code classes. However, which classes will be converted to B/C code classes has not yet been determined.
Ishibashi also plans to slightly alter the modular schedule proposal. The proposal lengthens the school day by 15 minutes, but Ishibashi plans to make Mod 1 start at 7:25 so that school would end earlier.
For Ishibashi, a new schedule is important for the State’s yearly schedule audits. “I’ll be much more comfortable with the audit knowing we are in compliance,” he said.
According to Ishibashi, because the department heads needed to draft a master schedule, an outline of all class, teacher and room assignments, there was not enough time for him to elicit input from students. However, he did discuss his decision with several students. Ishibashi said that he plans to evaluate the success of the new schedule at the end of next year. “We will see how everybody likes it and then make necessary adjustments,” he said. “If the schedule doesn’t work out next year, we can look at the other options.” |
