Study group looks at GHS block schedule
Gilroy – Local students may be marching to a different schedule next fall if a study this semester finds the current block schedule lacking.
The Gilroy Unified School District Board of Education unanimously approved a study Thursday of the current schedule at Gilroy High School. Assistant Superintendent Jacqueline Horejs recommended a study group that will begin meeting Sept. 29 to review current research on high school schedules and models used at schools across the nation.
“We want to take a look at the effectiveness of the current schedule,” Horejs said. “We will research other schedules in secondary schools and come to a recommendation for the next school year.”
The GHS began the new block schedule in 1992, when students went to all their classes on Mondays and then attended three classes and a tutorial period four days a week. On block days, students attended classes for 90 minutes with a 45 minute period to seek help from teachers or complete homework.
Since then, the tutorial period has been eliminated. Students now attend three classes a day for two hours each period.
“We’ve discussed or wondered about the efficiency. The classes are actually quite long,” said Tom Bundros, a school board member. “We are wondering if that is a good use of the time. It’s a long time for a teacher to teach and for a student to sit in a chair to absorb all that information.”
He acknowledged that some classes such as science labs benefit from the block time while others such as math and foreign language might work better as daily classes. The current study will be the first in-depth look at the schedule since block periods were implemented more than ten years ago.
The study group will include students, teachers, parents and a police liaison as well as several school district employees. The group will look at the current schedule in terms of student learning and achievement, quality use of instructional time, and campus safety and school climate. Horejs was not able to say what methodologies would be used.
“The reality is, it’s tough to compare two different schools,” said James Maxwell, GHS principal. “A lot of factors go into that, mostly the quality of instruction by the teachers.”
He has worked at schools with traditional schedules and partial block schedules, and said he saw no difference in the quality of learning. In traditional schedules, students attend all their classes each day of the week for shorter periods. In partial block classes, they attend all classes one or three days a week while attending classes in blocks the rest of the week.
During his first weeks at GHS, Maxwell visited classrooms to see how teachers use their two-hour periods.
“I was in two English classes and [the teacher] was using every minute,” said Maxwell. “I am going to classes to see if teachers are working to the end and so far everyone is using it.”
Maxwell has read schedule studies conducted more than five years ago, but said they were inconclusive.
“Research has become much better in education so we are probably going to see something that is much more accurate,” Maxwell said. “I am interested to see what Dr. [Horejs] will provide [to the study group].”
The schedule study group will look at academics, attendance and lunch service, before issuing its recommendation to the school board at the end of the semester.
“Attendance was much higher on block days than on regular days,” Maxwell said, of other schools he has worked in. “I don’t know why that happened, but it did.”
School board member Jaime Rosso expressed concern about the time it takes for 2,400 students to get lunch in a 30-minute break. He urged Horejs to consider two lunch periods for students.
Ninth-grade students Emily Walker and Virginia Murillo said they bring lunch from home because it takes too long to buy lunch on campus.
“I usually just bring snacks from home,” Walker said.
Other than their concerns about the lunch period, the girls said they were content with the current schedule.
“You get more done in two hours. You learn more,” Walker said. “Most teachers keep us interested for the two hours.”
Murillo said sometimes it is hard to concentrate for two hours after lunch, but she likes having extra days to do her homework.
“You don’t have to see each teacher every day, and you don’t have P. E. every day,” she said. “And it is nice to have more time to get dressed for P. E., especially since we are swimming now.”
Joe Monsour, a senior, said he would like his classes to meet each day for shorter periods.
“I want 45 minute class periods everyday,” he said. “If there is a sub, it’s just boring the whole class period.”
