Rockbridge County High School students, parents, and faculty recently received a notification from Assistant Principal Shaun Sparks confirming that a 4×4 block schedule would not be implemented next school year. This piece of news follows a month of school community confusion, frustration, and pushback against a possible transition.
To recap, teachers were informed by the school administration in a Sept. 26 faculty meeting that RCHS would be switching to a 4×4 block schedule next academic year with very little explanation. As the news spread to students and their families and speculation increased, an email was subsequently sent on Oct. 8 from Sparks outlining details of the then “proposed” transition and the reasoning behind it.
Although Sparks presented slideshows at the Oct. 14 county school board meeting and the Oct. 20 information session, students, faculty, and parents alike remained skeptical of a potential 4×4 schedule due to a lack of positive statistical evidence, disrupted academic continuity, and incomplete reasoning behind a transition.
The pause on the proposal is a welcome change from the initial abrupt announcement of a new schedule. I worry that this change is still on the table for RCHS in upcoming school years, and I believe an extreme schedule change would threaten the already delicate RCHS learning environment. When you have a big change like this one, three big questions come to my mind: Why? How? And what’s in it for me?
The administration did not present data regarding the reasons for the proposed schedule change (why?); it did not clearly state how the new schedule would be effectively implemented to ensure the success of every RCHS student (how?); and as a would-be future participant in the schedule, it was not clearly demonstrated how a 4×4 schedule would improve students’ learning experience over the current format (what’s in it for me?). Instead of improving the RCHS learning environment and student outcomes, I am concerned a future schedule change will negatively affect our students, faculty and staff.
The administration stated that the 4×4 schedule would “reduce daily stress” for every student by decreasing a student’s total number of classes in an academic term, but there was no evidence offered pointing to the cited “notable rise” in student anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. If we had this data from the Rockbridge Area Health Center clinic, now located in the school building, along with information about how much the clinic’s on-site services have helped address students’ mental health issues since it opened last fall, then there would be better context for the administration’s claim. Whether we have a new academic schedule in upcoming years or not, I would welcome a goal by our administration for alleviating student mental health troubles through an increased partnership with the clinic staff and other community resources. However, no statistical evidence was provided, the stated reasoning behind this proposal was weak.
While we were told that there would be a process in place to figure out schedule conflicts as we progressed towards next school year, the lack of a clear implementation plan for a proposed block schedule also worried me. Based on the little shared information, many members of the school community argued that learning loss and a lack of academic continuity would be major issues with a 4×4 schedule. Although some courses such as AP classes were stated to be under consideration to continue year-long under a 4×4 format, most classes would be semester long (fall or spring). This creates a much longer gap between sequential classes. For example, in the new schedule, a student who takes Geometry in the fall semester and doesn’t have room to take Algebra II in their spring semester must wait to take Algebra II either in the fall or spring semester of the following school year.
That’s at least an eight-month gap between math instruction. I think most students would agree that bouncing back from the “summer slide” when school starts in August is hard enough. Imagine what it would be like trying to remember math equations and fractions after eight months away from the material!
The same goes for every other subject at any level in a 4×4 schedule. It will be incredibly difficult for the faculty and staff to arrange course offerings in a 4×4 block to match what is available in our current format. No matter whether the course is a regular, honors, AP, or DE level, sequential classes would face the same challenge. In a full-year schedule format, students have the entire academic year to seek extra support and learn content at a deliberate pace. After the academic year is done, students only face a roughly three-month gap in the summer (presuming they don’t take summer courses).
Under a 4×4 block, though, that gap is much greater, and students’ lack of retention could result in increased academic challenges and stress for students, not to mention longer review time and more work for instructors. How much precious time would teachers have to spend in their already compressed class to catch up students who are rusty from the long layoff? A 4×4 schedule does not seem to alleviate stress for students on the academic front, and it seems to demand more from our faculty and staff too.
I am not flatly opposed to a schedule change or to other innovative solutions to help address issues at our school. Now that there is another school year to continue consideration for a schedule change, I urge the administration to continue to listen to the school community and focus on “promoting involvement of parents, community members, and all other stakeholders,” as the RCHS vision statement states, to ensure the success of any future proposed schedule change.
