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12-16-2001 Large lectures to be considered
BY STEVE KUCHERA AND JOHN MYERS
A proposal before the Duluth School Board to reduce the number of periods from seven to six has many people concerned. Some worry that reducing the number of periods would limit students' opportunities to take elective courses. "If you keep all else equal and reduce the number of periods, then some of the nonrequired courses are going to be losers,'' said Frank Wanner, president of the Duluth Federation of Teachers. Potential losers include art, music, band, some physical education, and electives in social studies and English, he said. Denfeld 11th-grader Amy Sternal opposes the idea because it would cut her options for gaining credits. "We should have all the credits we can get,'' she said. Amy Bradt, an East 11th-grader, also dislikes the idea. "I'd be so mad. I couldn't sit through six long classes like that,'' she said. "It has to keep moving.'' Alex Bayuk, an East 11th-grader, agreed. "We need all the classes and all the credits we can get. They shouldn't be cutting them back,'' she said. Denfeld ninth-grader Leah Gary, however, said having fewer classes each day might help her attention span. "By my seventh class, I'm not doing much,'' she said. Under the proposal -- offered as a way to help the district reduce a projected $2.6 million shortfall next year -- the length of the school day would remain the same. Each period would lengthen from about 50 minutes to about an hour long. Central High School art teacher Ervin Kuutti is concerned that the proposal would reduce the offerings students could take. He's also concerned that reducing electives could hurt the district's ability to meet state graduation standards. "The state has this big program of grad standards that are met in the elective classes,'' he said. "If the district starts eliminating electives, they're pretty much throwing the state guidelines out the window. I don't know how they will pull that off.'' If the district eliminates a period, it will have to tinker with the number of required credits or the placement of graduation standards, or change when various graduation credits are implemented, said Rex Hein, the district's director of curriculum, instruction and assessment. The fact that reducing periods would limit students' abilities to take electives is a concern, Hein said. The district could take several steps to lessen the impact. "What we plan to do is offer a few zero-hour courses,'' -- classes offered before the start of the regular school day -- he said. "We'll also offer multiple opportunities to get credits in another manner,'' Hein said, mentioning the proposal to allow students to earn physical education credits by competing in sports. That would free class time to take other courses. The proposal to reduce the number of periods is one of 31 scheduled to come before the School Board on Tuesday. At least two School Board members, Mike Akervik and Eileen Zeitz Hudelson, have reservations about shifting to fewer periods because it would limit students who want to take different classes. Wanner is concerned that the move could harm college-bound students. "The district needs to look at electives students may need to take to enter certain colleges,'' he said. "We don't want to be shortchanging kids.'' However, the number of electives high school students take isn't as vital as having a solid academic foundation, said Paul Thiboutot, dean of admissions at Carleton College, a respected liberal arts school in Northfield, Minn. "The most important thing is not electives, per say, but the solid preparation in the academic core subjects of mathematics, lab sciences, social sciences, English and a foreign language,'' he said. "That's five periods.'' Carleton prefers applicants who take the most challenging levels within each of those core subjects, and who perhaps don't take a sixth or seventh course, Thiboutot said. "It's not just counting the courses, but seeing what the courses are.'' Going to fewer periods "is going to hurt students more than it is going to hurt their ability to get into college,'' said Eric Berg, College of St. Scholastica associate director of admissions. "The main repercussion is that students will not have the opportunities they have now to showcase their abilities,'' he said. "It's going to reduce what they can explore. It will limit them, which is unfortunate.'' While reducing the number of periods would likely decrease the number of electives students could take, it could allow more instruction in the remaining classes. "If you cut a period but the school day remains the same length, then you can go more in depth in each subject,'' said Betty Aune, chairwoman of the College of St. Scholastica's education department. Nationwide, the shift to fewer periods is common. According to the American Federation of Teachers, it's estimated that between 25 percent and 40 percent of American high schools are using or experimenting with block scheduling -- which commonly offers four periods a day. Under one model of block scheduling, students attend a given class every other day, meaning they can still take up to eight subjects. Advocates of block scheduling say it allows teachers to cover topics in a deeper, more meaningful way. It can reduce the number of students teachers have to deal with daily, and it makes better use of school time, advocates say. Skeptics of block scheduling say most high school teachers haven't been trained to effectively use 90-minute periods, many high school students don't have a long-enough attention span, and -- under the alternate day model -- students can actually spend less time studying a topic than under a traditional schedule. Research on block scheduling's impact on student achievement has yielded mixed results. Duluth has looked at block scheduling, Hein said. "They have been talked about during these budget situations,'' he said. "At this point, we have not made any decision to move in that direction. You get a number of people, whether it's a budget situation or an educational situation, who think that it's not a good idea.'' The state doesn't track how many periods high schools offer, said Doug Gray, Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning spokesman. It's a local option not reported to the state, he said. Both Hein and Wanner said the district and teachers union will have to work out details if the School Board adopts some of the proposed curriculum changes. "That doesn't mean we're opposed to making some of those changes,'' Wanner said. "But we expect to sit down with the School Board and first of all find out just what they have in mind.'' "These are not choices that anyone would be looking at if it wasn't for the situation the district is facing,'' he added. "This is not a situation brought about by our school district -- this is a situation brought about by state funding and the governor's approach to education.''
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