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KJAM offers details on the Madison Central School Board's two-hour discussion of the trimester system in special session last night. This is the first formal review of the trimester system since its inception in 1997. (Reviews were supposed to happen every three years -- oops!)
Among other things, the school district paid consultant and career coach (a term that always raises my BS-radar) Margaret Sumption to help the board decide to decide later. The board will decide by February whether to conduct a study to help it decide to keep or scrap the trimester system. Any replacement won't happen until academic year 2009-2010.
One note on the the conversation: Board member Craig Walker asked if the trimester system is so great, then why is Madison the only district in the state using it? The Madville Times will note that being the only one doing X is not evidence in itself that X is bad. Being unique has its merits. But being unique isn't a great policy goal, either. For the school board, what matters is results. if our unique scheduling policy is helping kids get a better education, great! But if kids aren't learning more -- if, as some of us suspect, kids are actually losing out on opportunities in the arts and at DSU -- then we should pitch it, sooner rather than later.
Let's see about tightening up that decision and study schedule. Assemble a task force (local folks, please -- we've got enough smarts in-house to answer this question without sending more money to out-of-town consultants), find the data, make the call. Heck, we could be ready by AY 2008-2009!
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So, is the trimester getting the blame for all the evils in our district or is it really giving kids opportunities for more electives than any other system? Study halls went away ten years ago, band has dropped from 220 kids to 70, but is gaining again, and vocal music is thriving after a decline. If you look at Madison's ACT Scores, they continue to rise, year after year and surpass surrounding schools, but the learning gap Mrs. Knowlton refers to can be real for students when students take a math class one trimester, then have to wait until the third trimester to take the subsequent math class. To me, the only advantage to changing would be to align our schedule with area schools, the middle school and DSU which might afford kids some opportunities they currently don't have. It would also allow area students to transfer to Madison much easier or to take a class or two in Madison that maybe their school doesn't offer due to resource issues.
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