Block scheduling does not improve academic achievement

We would like to commend the Santa Rosa County School Board for listening to the many concerns of parents and students at last week's school board meeting and delay its final decision to implement the four by four block scheduling system at Gulf Breeze High School. We understand the financial straits the system is in, but are hopeful that a different solution can be found that will not compromise the academic excellence of GBHS.

While certainly everyone is entitled to his or her personal opinion, we would like to plead that that opinion is formed based on careful information about the subject matter. Having gone through years of block scheduling with two older children in a different school system, we are convinced that contrary to all good intentions, block scheduling ultimately waters down a curriculum and leads to a lowering of academic standards. Every experienced, self respecting educator will agree that learning occurs best when it is administered in short segments that make it possible for the student to assimilate and digest the concept taught.

Under block [scheduling] the teacher has to teach two days worth of material in just one day! Consequently, the students' attention needs to be kept for an entire 85 minutes of class time. Eighty five minutes - a time span way beyond an adolescent's attention span! No, there really is no time to get started on homework in class, since the second 45 minutes of class time need to be used to teach the next day's concepts. In fact, in all honesty there would have to be twice as much homework assigned, since twice as much material will have to be taught in one day and needs to be reinforced at home. That however, will not occur, as we personally have experienced. Class time will inevitably be spent on homework, concepts will be skipped over and ultimately less learning for all students at all levels will occur. Somewhere down the line, on nationally standardized tests, this will show up in a negative way.

At the same time, the sequencing of classes will be extremely difficult. For example, one year's math or foreign language will be taught in the first half of the school year, to be followed very possibly by the second year math/foreign language in the coming fall or, worst case scenario, in the spring after that - a gap in instruction of anywhere from eight to 13 months.

Yes, four years of a subject could be taught in consecutive two years, but that will still lead to that subject not being taught for an entire two years before the student enters college. How pedagogically sound is that?

Advanced Placement (AP) classes are faced with an even bigger challenge, since they must be taught year long, and therefore outside the block, to have the students optimally prepared for the standardized, nationwide AP exam in May. We must avoid weakening the AP classes at GBHS, as we have seen it happen before in our older children's schools. After all, an AP exam is one of the very few truly standardized tests that show how well our students and our school are doing compared to the rest of the country. AP classes are extremely important for gaining admission to selective colleges nationwide.

We urge the parents of this community to give this issue great consideration and express their opinion to the leadership at our school and our school board representative - regardless of their children's ages! Time flies, and before you know it high school will be upon you!

There is no research pointing to any merits of block scheduling in terms of academic achievement. Quite to the contrary, numerous studies point to a lowering of academic standards.

Yes, block scheduling does save money, in fact, the request by our school board to switch to block is motivated purely by budgetary constraints as our superintendent and all the school board members did admit at last week's meeting. Over 20 teachers will be let go at the two high schools under block schedule consideration

Hopefully with some outside the- box thinking, the support of our school board representative Ed Gray and our wonderful teachers a solution can be found as this community decides that "good" is not good enough when it comes to our schools. We must keep the bar high, keep our children's education a top priority and not settle for less than excellent.