School Board Agenda: Schedule Synch with DSU, But Still No Blog

One little dribble of new info on the school board's inclinations toward a new schedule: KJAM notes this morning that discussion at tonight's special school board meeting will include the merits of synchronizing the MHS class schedule with DSU's.

Now there's an angle to consider! The school district should do everything it can to make it easier for ambitious students to take college courses during high school. It saves the students and their families money, it gives them a headstart on college coursework, and it offers them opporuntities that the school district can't afford or fit into its schedule.

Does the trimester schedule get in the way of MHS students taking DSU classes? It's possible. Back in my glorious senior year at MHS, I had the pleasure of taking Calc I and II on the DSU campus with Dr. Foss, 8 a.m., every day. I'd get back to MHS around 9, wait in study hall for 15 minutes for the bell, then head for 2nd hour. Going to that DSU class knocked one class period out of my HS schedule, but I still had six periods left to choose from, plenty of room for chorus, art, and my college prep classes. Under the current trimester system, a student who has one class period knocked out by a DSU class (or anything else) only has four left per trimester. Of course, over the whole year, things balance out: I had twelve class periods to fill over two semesters; a contemporary MHS scholar taking one fall and one spring course would still have twelve free class periods left (three trimesters, four classes each).

Even if the trimester schedule itself doesn't affect kids' ability to sign up for university classes, maybe the school board will find that the timing of class periods complicates inter-campus schedules. For instance, DSU classes run on the hour (8:00-8:50, 9:00-9:50...). MHS classes start at 8:15 and run in varying blocks of 68, 71, 86, 65, and 73 minutes. Suppose an MHS student wants to take a DSU class but absolutely has to have Mr. Osterberg's third-period American History class, which runs from 10:41 to 12:08. That class period effectively prevents the student from taking DSU classes during three possible blocks, the ten-, eleven, and twelve-o'clock blocks. Synching all five trimester blocks (or even all seven semester blocks) with the DSU schedule is probably mathematically impossible, but maybe there are ways to align the start times better to give ambitious students some more options.

Perhaps all that and more will be discussed by the school board tonight. Alas, not on the agenda is any discussion of why tech support hasn't gotten the webcasts of the October and November meetings online yet, or whether the school would be interested in starting a massive public outreach blog. (Come on, MHS! Imagine it! Weekly blog updates from the superintendent, the principal... it would be so hip! so now! so Web 2.0!)