QUESTION: Creation of Junior High/Middle School Master Schedule

[John Kenneth Jonak]

Hi Everyone, My name is John Jonak and I'm a principal at Westmont Junior High School in Westmont, IL. We're in the process of dramatically rethinking our school and its schedule to meet student needs and develop 21st Century Learners. To those ends, I'm wondering if any of you work in / or know about schools that have flexible and innovative daily schedules that maximize student engagement that we could use as models for our thinking.

 

WJHS has approximately 335 students in grades 6-8.  We have a Deaf and Hard of Hearing program as well that includes 30 additional students.  I have roughly 24 teachers on staff (a couple are .5 or .6 FTE though).  Currently, we block for Literacy and students see all of their teachers everyday.  Depending on the student, she/he can be in any one of seven Math courses, although that may change with the new schedule.  Vocal and Instrumental Music are major parts of our current program (for instance - 75/115 6th graders play an instrument).  I would like to include an enrichment/intervention period for our students as well.

My school website is below:

https://www.cusd201.org/jrhigh/

Any suggestions are appreciated as I am on a tight timeline.  If you need more information before you can offer assistance, please feel free to call.

Respectfully,

John

[Ryan Goble]

A start - here is a Wallace Foundation report from 2011 loaded with ideas and waaaay back in 1995 it looks like Ed Leadership did a whole issue on innovative scheduling - you can probably check that out via your school library database.

[Ryan Goble]

And - some more...

In Edutopia - Alternative Schedules: A New School Day Dawns
From NMSA - NMSA Research Summary - Flexible Scheduling
From NMSA's Middle Ground Journal - Kick-Off, Half-Time, and Over-Time: Flexible Scheduling Scores Points
Three books - Scheduling Strategies for Middle Schools - By Michael D. Rettig, Robert Lynn Canady, Block Scheduling (Library of Innovations) - Robert Lynn Canady, Mic... and Scheduling to Improve Student Learning - Ron Williamson
and Using Time Well: Schedules in Essential Schools

[Ryan Goble]

And lastly - I remembered this info from an Adolescent Psychology class I teach - a lot of brain science supports students having a later start time. In this FRONTLINE "Inside the Teenage Brain"they talk about schools in MN that do late start times. Here is the blurb from the Frontline Website (circa 2002):

The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota has done several studies of Minnesota school districts regarding changes to later start times for high schools. Published in November 1998, its comprehensive first study examined 17 districts in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to find out the various costs to the school and community. The study surveyed students, teachers, parents, administrators, community members, and medical researchers. Researchers also spoke with many other constituencies that would be affected by the change, including those involved with transportation, athletics, fine arts, community education, food service, and juvenile crime, as well as student employers.

The second study, released in August 2001, examined data regarding student grades and attendance in the Minneapolis School District. It found that attendance in the district had improved significantly from 1995-2000, but that although there was a slight improvement in grades earned overall, the difference was not statistically significant. However, the study also cautioned, "A finding from this time-consuming and intensive data analysis is that the difficulty of making comparisons and subsequent judgments is likely to be a problem for any district attempting to judge the efficacy of a change using letter grades earned as the primary indicator."

Here is an up-to-date link to UM's research - LATER START TIMES FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS