School Board Tackles Schedule -- Trimesters in Peril?

There's always hope....

MDL reports tonight that the Madison Central School District is having a special meeting Thursday. Someone must have really screwed up -- they're having an executive session to discuss a student disciplinary case. (Trust me, kid, whoever you are -- when the school board calls a special meeting to talk about you, you're toast.)

But in happier news, the school board also plans to discuss HS-MS scheduling. The high school follows the legnedary trimester system, while the middle school follows a 6-week schedule. (You know those dwindling attention spans -- pretty soon we'll just break all the classes down into little half-day seminars... or YouTube videos.) MDL says school officials are looking at the "effectiveness" of the different scheduling schemes and "will also offer recommendations for adjustments to the systems" [Chuck Clement, "Madison School Board Schedules Special Meeting," Madison Daily Leader, 2007.12.04].

Adjustments? Actual change to the status quo? Be still my beating heart! Three years after the departure of the administration that pushed the trimester plan, might we finally be ready to try something different?

Naturally, we should only try something different if it will improve the performance of students and teachers. We were sold trimester scheduling under the thesis that it would improve student performance. However, one education expert says there is no clear body of evidence that alternative class schedules like the trimester or block produce any better academic achievement [Terry Spradlin, associate director of education policy, Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana University School of Education, cited in "New CEEP Policy Brief Examines Alternative School Time Structures," 2007.09.10]. One study finds higher GPAs in semester-schedule schools, but the researchers warn there are lots of other factors that might produce the differences.

That conclusion would suggest kids would learn just as well under a semester system as the current trimester system. To justify any change, the school would have to identify other possible advantages. Trimester advocates have their own website (I'm not kidding!). The trimester system offers some flexibility -- for example, a kid who flunks the first trimester of senior English still has a shot of making up that class second trimester and doing the second half before graduation. But kids in Madison have also experienced how the trimester system can hit the music program hard, as kids have less room to take band or chorus all year long as they try to fit all their classes in.

My readers and I have voiced opinions here (and here and here and here and probably elsewhere!) previously about the trimester system; maybe the board will take those comments into account as they consider the schedule Thursday night.