Facing cuts, school board eyes changes
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

Photo courtesy of barterville@morguefile.com Santa Rosa School Board officials may reorganize bus schedules in light of proposed budget cuts.

Gulf Breeze High and Navarre High School may be going to a block scheduling format beginning the 2008-2009 school year, making each class period 85 minutes long. Santa Rosa County School Superintendent John Rogers said that would give students more opportunities for electives, give teachers more time in each class period for instruction with less homework and save the district at least $3 million a year.

The superintendent asked at a school board special workshop that a committee be formed immediately to focus on what it would take to make the changes for the next school year. He also asked the committee to look at changing the bus schedules to a three tier system, which would give drivers more time between routes. Transportation Director Joey Harrell said a three tier system would also require about 40 less bus drivers and less buses, bringing more savings.

The county has six high schools and Locklin Vocational Center, and all except Gulf Breeze and Navarre are already on the four by four block schedule. Students have four classes a day, and teachers teach four classes a day. The students take one set of classes the first 90 days of the school year, and a different set the second 90 days. "They could take math and science and PE and an elective the first 90 days, then they would take their English and Social Studies with some other classes the next 90 days," Superintendent Rogers explained. "Under the current system of six periods a day, like in Gulf Breeze, students have 24 credit opportunities. Under the four by four block schedule they would have 32 credit opportunities. Teachers are teaching a year's worth of classes in half a year."

Winkles

Rogers said the block scheduling requires more classrooms but fewer teachers.

Rhonda Chavers, chair of the Santa Rosa Professional Educators Association, is teaching the four by four block schedule now.

"It gives students a better chance to make up classes they fail the second semester without having to take summer school," she said. "And it cuts down on homework because students can do much of that work in the classroom, with teacher guidance, instead of asking parents to have to try to help at home every night." She said currently at Locklin teachers get to the school at 7:15 a.m. and the students get there at 8:15, so it gives teachers an hour of planning time. "Our contract says we are to have 50 minutes a day for planning, so that more than meets the contract. The teachers like it."

Rogers

School Board chairman Hugh Winkles said, "We have been talking about some of these cost cutting measures for the last six years. I think it is time we actually put some in place. We do not want to get down to zero dollars before we do something."

School board member JoAnn Simspon said, "We have people in the county that have been teaching the four by four scheduling since 1996. I was one of the people on the board back then that were really against going to that system. But then we visited some schools in south Florida who used the system, and when I saw the many opportunities it gives students, I changed my mind. And now that I have seen it work in Milton and Pace, for example, I am a big supporter of the block scheduling the way we are doing it in this county."

Superintendent Rogers said one of the biggest problems with transitioning a school over to the block scheduling is teachers not having experience or training in that kind of teaching.

"That was a problem when we tried it at Navarre High when it first opened, over 10 years ago," Rogers said. "The teachers had no experience with it, and some could not adjust and did not like it. But we need to make sure and do some ongoing in-service with our teachers letting some of the ones that have experience in it help the teachers who don't."

Rogers suggested a paid two-week in-service during the summer, and also some in-service during the school year. It was suggested that some early release days might be a good way to do the in-service training.

Rogers said they would need to have a committee report on the feasibility of the change to block scheduling and what it would take soon. He said the school board needs to make a decision by December this year to have it in place by the following school year beginning in August 2008.