Dimond Faces Scheduling Challenges Next Year

Budget cuts mean loss of teachers, seven-period schedule

Due to the challenges of budget cuts, high schools will be losing teachers, prompting the
school district to ask “each high school to prepare for a seven period schedule next year,” Dimond Principal Cheryl Guyett said.

Dimond alone will be losing six to seven teachers unless the state legislature increases
funding for schools.

“If the legislature increases funding, the top priority is to resume funding to teachers,”
Guyett said.

The class sizes will be larger because if six to seven teachers are cut, 30 to 35 class periods
are cut per day causing the district to be concerned about the loss of some advanced placement
(AP) classes or electives, Guyett said.

The seventh period should make it so most of the current electives and AP classes can still
be offered, she said.

“The biggest problem [with the seven-period schedule] is less time in each class over a
given week,” Guyett said.

Guyett, the department chairs at Dimond and other teachers willing to meet for four
Tuesdays are meeting to talk about the schedule possibilities.

Currently, there are six different schedule ideas.

Each school can design their own class schedule “within limits,” Guyett said.

The first limit is that the school day cannot be extended.

Second, the schedule needs to be compatible with the King Career Center’s (KCC)
morning and afternoon sessions.

Third, the new schedule cannot disrupt the bus schedule, Guyett said.
One or two final ideas will be presented to the entire faculty, students and parents for
input.

Three of the models have a modified blocking system, but there is still a long way to go,
Guyett said.

Some people believe that a longer block is needed for science lab work and performance
and arts classes.

Once instruments in band and orchestra classes are taken out, set up and ready to go, part
of the class time is already used. The instruments also need to be put away at the end of class,
which does not leave much time for the music aspect of the class.

This, and the general fact that class time would be cut with a seven-period class schedule, is
an issue for many people.

One of the ideas is to have a study hall, but it would probably be titled differently, Guyett
said.

It would benefit teachers who already lug home boxes of papers to grade, so the ideas is to
have those teachers teach a seventh period without additional grading.

The additional class could also be something like a writing lab where everything is done in
class. It would be an elective credit.

The scheduling with lunch has not been dealt with, Guyett said, but after seeing a week of
one lunch, she thinks there is a benefit to still having two lunches.

The PLC schedule, also called Late Start Monday, is another “variable that is not dealt
with,” Guyett said.

“Teachers are more concerned about instructional time, than time to plan collaboratively,”
Guyett said, but it may be beneficial to have time to look at teaching.

The number one criteria is to still teach the courses best for the students, Guyett said.

When scheduling starts in the spring, students will be encouraged to schedule for seven
classes, she said.