OXFORD – Oxford High School students are sitting down this week to create their schedules for next year. According to Principal Janet Laytham, the process began Tuesday with juniors “plugging in course selections” for their senior year.
“The kids have a lot of good questions,” the principal said. “They seem to be taking it very seriously.”
The entire scheduling process is a learning experience for the district. Not only are kids playing a more active role in crafting their schedules, but the school is working with a new model. Gone is the block semestered schedule the high school has employed for more than a decade. In its place will be an eight period schedule, with 40-minute periods.
Doing away with the tried-and-true semester model was not a choice the district made on its own. Instead, they have been forced to reconsider how they do scheduling as a result of the New York State Education Department.
Last June, the state agency threatened to eliminate January Regents testing, which would render semestering obsolete. Only a small percentage of New York schools use the model. Several Chenango County districts – Oxford, Norwich, Unadilla Valley, Otselic Valley, Bainbridge-Guilford and Afton – fell into that category at the time.
Schools, which had been scrambled frantically to put a new schedule in place before the start of the 2010-11 year, were given a reprieve a month later, when SED decided to fund the January tests for another year. Districts received a letter from Senior Deputy Commissioner of Education John King notifying them of the decision, but in the document he implied the reprieve was only temporary and the mid-year tests would likely be eliminated in future.
At least one local district decided to move forward with the new full-year schedule they created, Oxford and Norwich chose to make use of the extra time to more fully explore their options.
According to Laytham, she and members of Oxford High School’s faculty and staff have been working since September on an alternative.
“Our teachers have really stepped up,” she told the board.
It was an arduous task, she admitted, particularly since there was a reluctance to move away from the existing model.
“There are a lot of good reasons to upend a schedule,” Laytham said, explaining that the situation wasn’t “ideal.” “This didn’t come from wanting to do something better for kids.”
Together they looked at what other districts are doing, and evaluated a number of different block and rotational scheduling options and period structures.
