Becker High School is beginning a new, five-period day/trimester schedule change for the 2017-18 school year.
After a year-long process of looking at future trends, examining BHS data and creating a vision based upon six components (alternative delivery, scheduling, social-emotional learning, senior year, career pathways and student engagement), the high school program review team has selected the new schedule as its basic program structure.
Supt. Steve Malone says the other five components will be phased in over time.
“Under the block system, class periods are 85 minutes long,” he said. “Research shows that the best class length is 65-70 minutes for students’ attention span and for effective instruction.”
He also says the loss of continuity of instruction caused by scheduling gaps has had a negative impact on student achievement as reflected in standardized assessments. Students who are absent from school on the block system miss the equivalent of one-and-one half days of instruction, making it more difficult to catch up. Over the past 10 years, the high school enrollment has increased by over 100 students, making scheduling under the block schedule difficult.
Class sizes of up to 30 students will remain the same. Students will have five classes per trimester. This schedule is similar to the current schedule for middle school and ninth grade students.
Graduation requirements for classes 2018 and 2019 will be 28.5 credits which will include language arts (four credits), social studies (four), physical education (one), business (.5 for 2018, one for 2019), math (three), science (three), health (one), fine arts (one) and 11 electives.
For classes 2020, 2021 and beyond, 28 credits are required for graduation.
For science, BHS eliminated the low, ninth-grade physics and chemistry and added post-secondary environmental science. For math, they added an accelerated ninth-grade class (two years of math in three trimesters), added a year-long algebra in ninth-grade and year-long geometry in 10th-grade. They also made a significant realignment of content in all courses and added a prob/stats class.
For English language arts, BHS increased rigor of reading and writing content in ninth and 10th-grades and added a reading class in addition to regular/core English for ninth and 10th graders.
For social studies, BHS moved Economics from grade 10 to grade 11, divided World History into Ancient History and World Affairs and added an extra two-weeks in government to provide more time for local government.
For physical education, the members decided to replace one 10th-grade phy-ed class with on of three choices, including: conditioning and body development, aerobics/body shaping and toning and lifetime fitness activities.
For Spanish, they added additional time for cultural exposure.
In fine arts, they added an upper-level independent study portfolio class after advanced art. Fine arts will have three bands (Bulldog Band-9th, concert band- 10th-12th and wind ensemble 10th - 12th). There will also be four choirs (ninth, bella voice choir, concert choir and chamber choir).
For technology education, a robotics class was added and BHS also changed Web Design II to computer programming.
For business education, BHS eliminated digital citizenship from ninth-grade and replaced it with 21st Century citizenship for 11th and 12th grades. The content of that class will include personal finance, digital citizenship and college and career readiness. BHS also added a Computerized Accounting II class for online students.
The high school review team consisted of 23 members of faculty, staff board members, students and parents and included: Sandy Logrono Mark Kolbinger, Steve Malone, Nancy Helmer Weiss, Jean Duffy, Ryan Cox, Aaron Jurek, Celina Gustafson, Jennifer Potter, Allyna Storms, Ryan Sommerdorf, Heather Eigen, Margaret Smude, Dan Baird, Gretchen Bordson, Pam Braun, Shelly Clemen, Max Egbert, Judi Klosterman, Maggie Maine, Tina Tamm, Craig Vogl and Dustin Weege.
