Written By: Faryal Zubair, Editor-In-Chief
Short 45-minute classes on Mondays, long even and odd days, and some split lunches. In many ways, that sums up the type of scheduled days students at WHS experience all year round. However, it is not the way surrounding county schools run their schools. The faculty and administration have been discussing the possibility of changing WHS from an even and odd block schedule to an alternative schedule such as 4×4 schedule.
“We’ve had a couple of meetings,” said assistant principal Matt Schult.
Many county schools are scheduling their classes 4×4. Students take four 90-min classes every day each semester. At the end of the year, they accumulate eight credits while most students at WHS only end the year with seven credits.
“We are trying to take a comprehensive picture of what works best for the students,” said Schult.
He explained that the scheduling committee has divided their work into four parts: student surveys, parent surveys, research, and visits.
“There is always talk about schedule change,” said Ms. Elizabeth Gross, who is helping survey the community and the students. “We are not attempting for everybody to be the same. We do want to look at it and see if we can improve our schedule,” explained Gross.
Some of the main reasons why a new schedule is needed are to find a way to work with Governor’s school, Valley-Vo tech, and kids who transfer in and out throughout the school year.
“They’re screwed,” said Gross, referring to transfer students who come in the middle of the year from a school that offers a “4 x 4” schedule.
Those students are at a loss because coming into second semester in WHS from a 4 x 4 school means that they have already accumulated four credits but have missed out on the entire first semester for the other four credited classes they have yet to complete.
Other things that will be greatly affected by the change are elective classes and AP classes. The AP test is given at the same time every year in early May. Students might not retain all that knowledge if they take the class first semester. A solution might be to have kids take their AP class the second semester but then they are forced to take the test a few crucial weeks before the end of the semester.
“We are never going to please 100 percent of the people,” said Principal Tim Teachey, who has been visiting other schools to see how the pros and cons of their schedule.
Foreign language classes and math classes also need to be considered.
“Languages and math need to be more consecutive,” said Teachey.
Gross, who teaches math, shares the same opinion.
“It’s best for me if I see my students often. What you learn today, you’re going to use tomorrow,” she said.
Elective classes can also pose as a problem because classes such as journalism, yearbook, and choir need to be taken year round. Teachey suggests that adding a consistent 45-minute period class all year to a 4×4 schedule may solve the problem.
He also mentions that there is a good possibility that the schedule might not change at all.
“We might find that the schedule we have is the best one for us,” said Teachey.
For now, the faculty and administration will continue to investigate numerous ways to improve WHS’s agenda.
“The next step is to put all this information together and sit down and talk about it,” said Gross.
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