Schools

Farmington School Board Approves Trimester Report, More Study Ahead

Administrators will begin a study of the schedule to determine the cost of adding critical elements.

members on Tuesday voted to accept a final report that triggers a study of whether the district will continue high school trimester scheduling.

In place for four years, the schedule of five 70-minute classes over 12 weeks was implemented in an effort to save money, while offering students the opportunity to take more elective classes. A study committee of district staff and community members was formed last year to evaluate trimesters, in part because of concerns over how the model was actually working.

Supt. Sue Zurvalec said the committee's charge was "to analyze achievement and perception data" from students, teachers and parents. "The process was not intended to bring forward a specific recommendation for scheduling changes," she said.

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However, the committee's first recommendation – to determine the cost of adding opportunities for acceleration, enrichment, intervention and reteaching – may lead to some changes, Zurvalec said.

John Manier, district executive director of instructional services, said Tuesday that the committee will study the cost of allowing students to immediately re-take a class they may have failed.

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They'll also look at the cost of allowing students to "loop" core academic subjects, so that a student could take two trimesters of a subject at his or her own grade level, and then move directly into the next grade level of the same subject.

Manier said research will also be done into high failure rate classes, to determine whether they should be offered over three trimesters. Currently, some core subjects are offered so that students take them in the first and third trimester, rather than consecutively.

"We may get to the point where we realize this is cost-prohibitive," Manier said, adding the decision then is whether to "keep going, or should we change the path."

Zurvalec said if officials decide to look at other scheduling alternatives, those changes will not be put in place for the 2012-2013 school year. Manier said the work group advised that any new schedule be thoroughly evaluated before putting it place.

"The process of implementing a new schedule would be a lot of back to the drawing board," he said.

Board member Debbie Brauer said the report "really did showcase and outline the things we felt intrinsically, but have not known." She said things that stood out clearly for her included the question of whether the trimester days equated to a semester of learning and the fact that teachers felt their relationships with students were diminished.

She said the gap between 1st and 3rd trimesters in core classes "just can't be good for kids. I'm hoping with further study, we can determine what's effective." Brauer also noted that money is even more tight for the district than it was four years ago, and coming up with additional funds to fully implement trimesters will be difficult.

"I hope we take a look at is this good for kids," she said, "because in my mind, it's not."

Manier expects an initial report will be made to the board sometime in December.


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