Article

Monroe joins trend of 80-minute classes

Friday, February 02, 2007 • BY CHANDRA M. HAYSLETT • Star-Ledger Staff

The science teachers at Monroe High School are growing tired of squeezing in labs with lectures. The English teachers don't have the time to offer more than one interpretation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." And in history classes, discussions on the political issues during the Civil War sometimes get cut short.

So starting next school year, Principal Robert Goodall said, Monroe will join a growing number of New Jersey high schools and move to block scheduling.

Instead of eight roughly 40-minute classes per day, students will have just four classes lasting about 80 minutes each. It's a different take on the school day that is becoming increasingly trendy in secondary education around the state.

"If you go back more than a decade, I don't think anyone was using it," said Willa Spicer, director of the Performance Assessment Alliance and a longtime New Jersey educator. "So it's still a fairly new phenomenon and, anecdotally, it's on the increase."

But just as the use of block scheduling is growing, so is the debate that follows it.

"It's an innovative strategy that's not really common and not successful if it isn't employed correctly," said William Firestone, professor of educational policy and administration at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education in New Brunswick.

Both teachers and students may have difficulty adapting to the longer classes because it requires retooling lesson plans to not just use the time, but to hold the attention of students, Firestone said.

"It's not hard to keep the students awake if you, as a teacher, have a good portfolio of instruction strategies," he said.

The American Federation of Teachers, with 1.3 million members nationally, doesn't favor one type of scheduling over another. Dawn Krusemark, associate director of educational issues for the Washington, D.C.-based organization, said not enough information is known about the effectiveness of block scheduling.

"There's no conclusive research," she said. "Any practice that goes into any school should have a research basis."

Krusemark said block scheduling changes have not been successful when mandated by administration, but there have been better results in cases where the teachers recommend the switch and accept additional training.

"Teachers are trained to function in a 45-minute block," Krusemark said. "Teachers need training in a 90-minute block. It's a different kind of teaching strategy."

It's one that has been employed with mixed success around the state. South Brunswick High School in Middlesex County switched from a regular eight-class day to a block schedule nearly a decade ago.

Patricia Abitabilo, 11th-grade vice principal, said that while some math teachers at the school still feel 87 minutes is too long, other subject teachers were able to come up with activities so the class went by faster.

Students at Hoboken High School switched three years ago. But the change lasted a year.

"The 80-minute period worked work for the (advanced) students, but the regular classes didn't need 80 minutes," said Irene Murnane, assistant to the principal at the Hudson County school.

Two years ago, the school switched to a schedule in which students take five classes a day for an hour each.

Teachers at Emerson High School in Union City also had to abandon the block schedule. Math teachers said not being able to see students every day was hurting performance on state math tests, which had dipped to 38 percent passing during the 2001-02 school year, when the change was made. Since then, the math scores have increased to 79 percent, said Principal Robert Fazio, who also serves as assistant superintendent.

The shift to the block scheduling in Monroe started three years ago when teachers at the high school voiced concerns that they didn't have enough time to fully teach a class, Goodall said. A committee visited some of the top schools in the country identified by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and found that nearly all have alternative scheduling. Administrators decided the "A/B block" schedule -- in which students take eight total classes, with four meeting one day and four the next -- would work best for the school's 1,500 students.

Carol Tomlinson, an education professor at the University of Virginia, is working with Monroe's teachers to guide them through the change to the 80-minute class schedule.

"A longer class period for a flat, boring class will not produce magic," Tomlinson said. "A class in which teachers use the time to engage students in various ways to ensure their success with carefully defined and relevant learning goals is likely to be very promising."

Changing times at Jersey schools

Return to Articles page