Since Jan. 6, administration has implemented a new bell schedule for students to follow, affecting the time allocated to each period.
“We wanted to have a schedule that aligns more with the district schedule for all secondary schools,” assistant principal Frank Weiss said. “We wanted to align our schedule so CTE buses and other things across the district were more in line with us.”
That is just level one to the change. From here, administration worked on figuring out how to provide opportunities for students to receive intervention from teachers apart from before and after school tutorials.
“We’re trying to work on a campus opportunity for intervention,” Weiss said. “Right now we’re working with EOC students, Early Beginning Language students and those in our SPED population during this advisory time.”
The district allotts 90 minutes per class period, but, prior to the schedule change, classes were 98 to 100 minutes. Often, this resulted in students needing intervention being pulled out by teachers during lessons.
“We started doing this last semester, but with our other bell schedule,” Weiss said. “We had a lot of success with it [where] two out of every three of our students that were in those tutorials passed the algebra makeup EOC in December. Now we’re expanding that, which is another need for why we had to have an alternate schedule.”
With the new schedule in place, students needing intervention are now able to go to specific locations to work with tutors and teachers regarding their STAAR classes, including Algebra 1, English 1, English 2, Biology and U.S. History.
“We want to make sure everything is organized for the school so these interventions can take place,” Weiss said. “That’s why from 12:10 until 12:45, there’s no passes and students aren’t to be freed in the hallways so we know which students are coming and going and where they’re going to.”
However, the restriction on hallway passes during that 35-minute window has affected students who are not assigned intervention, extending their second period class and making the period feel significantly longer.
“It’s difficult to be in and to focus in one classroom for over two hours long,” senior Saumya Valiveti said. “I feel very lethargic and tired after sitting in one spot for so long, so I enjoyed the schedule we had when we were able to go to different classes and have that as a study period rather than being integrated into our second period.”
Administration, like many students, hopes the current intervention systems don’t remain permanent.
“[It] would be fantastic if all students would have an opportunity for some sort of intervention time,” Weiss said. “Right now, it’s very targeted and specific with STAAR, but looking to the future, if this can go well, we can hopefully open it up to any class and all students to capture some of those tutorial efforts from our teachers to our students that are in need.”