APS Block Schedule - 90 minute core classes

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

Thanks for clarifying. One difference in our opinions seems to be that you think it’s easier to catch up in one longer period class than two shorter classes. Perhaps if a student is “in the groove” on one topic, that might help. However, if content is the same under the two schedules, one school day should generate a similar amount of content/homework to make up however it is grouped. A longer block class should generate the same content/homework to make up as two shorter regular classes in theory. Good point to ask kids although I’m not sure that will address the question fully as they probably prefer options that mean less work (who wouldn’t) and they don’t have a regular (non-block) schedule of the same classes to compare to.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

Thanks for clarifying. One difference in our opinions seems to be that you think it’s easier to catch up in one longer period class than two shorter classes. Perhaps if a student is “in the groove” on one topic, that might help. However, if content is the same under the two schedules, one school day should generate a similar amount of content/homework to make up however it is grouped. A longer block class should generate the same content/homework to make up as two shorter regular classes in theory. Good point to ask kids although I’m not sure that will address the question fully as they probably prefer options that mean less work (who wouldn’t) and they don’t have a regular (non-block) schedule of the same classes to compare to.

My kids have middle school regular schedule to compare to their high school block schedule. They did not have block scheduling in their middle school. They're actually better positioned to compare from direct experience, since I never had high school block scheduling. I can only compare high school with college. I also think block scheduling in high school gears them up for a college schedule better, too; but that's another debate.

I did note in an earlier comment that I think certain classes might be more challenging to catch-up on, like math or science. But again, it depends. Given what I hear from my kids about what they've done in class each day, it seems they routinely get time to do their homework; and with APS' abandoning of homework, that seems a natural result.

In the end, I think you have a chance to catch-up before you fall further behind with a daily class theoretically moving forward every single day. But as with everything else, despite advertising, one size does not fit all.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

Sorry, not just one person, don't worry. I'm actually OP of this thread, I was just asking about block scheduling, and my dislike of it, and then BAM, of course HB doesn't have to do it. Its like the movie Twins, where HB is Arnold and the rest of the high schools are Danny.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

Probably one of the same moms screaming that a regular ES/MS couldn’t go in Rosslyn and effectively forced HB to move.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

Probably one of the same moms screaming that a regular ES/MS couldn’t go in Rosslyn and effectively forced HB to move.

Talk about moving goal posts. EVERYONE was fine with a neighborhood ES in Rosalyn, they are about 500 students, vs 1000 student MS, compared to 700 at HB.

And yes, I did kick HB out off the largest acreage MS property in APS partly because they refused to expand the program. So your welcome; the county did an end run and blew their budget on the Heights so still managed to screw the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

Probably one of the same moms screaming that a regular ES/MS couldn’t go in Rosslyn and effectively forced HB to move.

Talk about moving goal posts. EVERYONE was fine with a neighborhood ES in Rosalyn, they are about 500 students, vs 1000 student MS, compared to 700 at HB.

And yes, I did kick HB out off the largest acreage MS property in APS partly because they refused to expand the program. So your welcome; the county did an end run and blew their budget on the Heights so still managed to screw the rest of us.

NP. But I think the actual question was a MS at Rosslyn or moving HB, and people did not want their middle schoolers in Rosslyn with such a small campus and no field - they wanted the renovated DHMS in the former HB building.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

Probably one of the same moms screaming that a regular ES/MS couldn’t go in Rosslyn and effectively forced HB to move.

Talk about moving goal posts. EVERYONE was fine with a neighborhood ES in Rosalyn, they are about 500 students, vs 1000 student MS, compared to 700 at HB.

And yes, I did kick HB out off the largest acreage MS property in APS partly because they refused to expand the program. So your welcome; the county did an end run and blew their budget on the Heights so still managed to screw the rest of us.

Bullcrap. Everyone was not fine with an ES or MS in Rosslyn.

Stop b1tching about HB being in a new building when you put them there.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Google benefits of block scheduling. Teachers are NOT using it as a study hall.

Haha I can Google benefits of Lucy Caulkins too, look how that turned out.

You guys are idiots. Seriously. Block scheduling has been around since the 90s. We had it in my high school. Grow up.

Interesting, and yet people have been saying local school systems have been in decline since the 90s…

No. “They” haven’t been saying that.

Yeah, they've been saying it since the 2010's. Especially regarding APS.

APS isn’t in decline. You’re all so sheltered that you have no idea what a bad school system actually looks like. None of the ones in this entire metro area are bad. Not even close. The bulk of complaints about schools here, whether it’s APS, FCPS, MCPS, are just because too many people are overstretched on their house and angry they paid $900k for a shack inside the beltway and that pinch makes them feel like they’re entitled to something they were never going to get - a private school experience in a public school system.

The schools are good. You’re angry at what you spent on a house to get into those schools. But it doesn’t make them bad schools. Your issue isn’t block scheduling, it’s your mortgage

They didn't say they're "bad." They said they're "in decline." A good school system can be in decline and still be better relative to other school districts. It means they aren't as good as they used to be. And I don't care about ratings relative to NYC Public Schools or Chicago or even DC. I care about the school system my kids are in; and if it can be better, then people should push it to be better and call it out when they believe it is heading in the wrong direction. Why should we just accept whatever we have as long as it's still better than elsewhere?

Also, my buying a house has nothing to do with my dissatisfaction with certain things about APS. Not everyone "spent on a house to get into those schools." Maybe those who have more money and spent more money on their homes have a tendency to be more critical of APS; but don't you think it might be that they have higher expectations based on APS' reputation as well as their own personal experiences with APS, perhaps in comparison to their own educational experiences - as opposed to those of the poorer people in the community coming from far inferior education systems and therefore finding anything APS offers to be superior to where they came from? THOSE are the people who "spent on a house" to get their kids into a good school system.

There is nothing wrong with holding a school system to higher standards.

APS was definitely much better back in the 90s and early 2000s; we moved here in 2005 with a baby thinking it was for good schools.

However, back then APS was dealing with declining enrollment, meanwhile the county was getting wealthier with the housing boom and growth. They introduced IB into WL to attract students from Yorktown which at that time was comparable to Mclean in performance, and getting to HB was so much easier because there simply were fewer students interested in an alternative program.

Fast forward 15 years, and county student population exploded meanwhile the county coffers have declined; they blew a TON of money in the 2010s building SMALLER new high schools and the marque $$$$ Heights building. ATS & HB is overrun with applicants who are simply trying to escape the overcrowsed high schools rather than actually interested in the alternative program. The county was sued for equity, and so has invested a lot of effort on improving equity and their approach has to been to remove things like differentiation at younger grades and eliminate homework; bringing everyone down to same performance rather than improving from those who are behind.

Compounded with AHA lobbyists who are pushing more and more housing with more high need students, it is a different place.

Whether block scheduling which also started in the time was a factor is hard to know, since so much about the system has changed in last 20 years.

PP here. Yes, exactly. Some bad curriculum/instructional choices and, worst of all, lowering of expectations and standards in the name of equity. A better school system would raise the expectations and standards for the lowest performing, not lower them for the high achieving.

I will note regarding block scheduling - to get back to the original topic - that another advantage to block scheduling is that a student who is out sick one day does not miss every single class, just half. And when a student is out for a week (like mine is now due to a positive COVID test - ugh!), they only miss each class a few times rather 5 times.

There are other schedules where classes don't meet every day. Some schedules have classes meet four times a week, with off one day, with normal class length of 50 or so minutes.

Do you feel that your child misses less when they're out sick for a week under block? In theory, block and regular classes should cover the same content each week so you'd miss a comparable amount under either system. If they use part of blocks for independent work, however, then an absent student would miss less new content with blocks, but that may not be a good thing in the big picture since it means they get less new weekly content under blocks.

Exactly, if they are missing less content in a week when they are out on block, that means THERE IS LESS CONTENT IN A WEEK.

I actually think block can be worse when you're out sick. If you're out one day and it's the day you have math, you have missed double the math content than if you were just out for one day.

But overall, you have more time to get caught up - in any class.
Plus, since everything is online and assignments are through Canvas, students have immediate access to their assignments and can work on them before returning (if they're not too sick to do anything, of course) rather than waiting until the next time their class meets after returning.

I think it's better overall to miss one block class than 2 regular classes. If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures.

Other schedules with classes meeting 4x/week really isn't much better than the 5x/week scenario. But with block scheduling, even if the student is out a whole week, they are missing some of their classes only twice and others 3 times instead of missing all classes 5 times.

But yes, I think math and science classes could be the most challenging to miss under the block schedule; though I'd argue it's not any worse than missing those classes 5 days in a row under traditional scheduling, and I still think better. I'll have to ask my child what they think when they've returned to school.

The concern with blocks is with what you describe here:
"If the student is missing out on group work from that one block class day, the teacher can make accommodations for that if needed. IMO, that's better than missing two days' worth of lectures."
Under block, there's group work but regular schedule there's two days of instruction.

Also, I think PP's comment about block math classes being worse to miss relates to missing one day as opposed to five. If you miss math one day in blocks, you've lost a bigger share of that week's class time than under a regular schedule.

I realize it's been a while since I've been in high school, but even under the 5x/week schedule we had group work during class. We also had research time in the school library for term papers. So, I am not persuaded by the suggestion that a regular schedule is solely two days of instruction. Additionally, there is often review and continuance of a topic or concept for consecutive days in a 5-days-a-week schedule. So again, no, I don't believe students necessarily miss material, or more material, when they miss one block schedule class.

Any teachers here who have taught/have experience with both formats who are able to comment on how much time is "lost" each day reviewing yesterday's material, reminding students "where we left off," etc versus block scheduling?

PP again - I'll add that I also recall a portion of my math classes being spent going over the previous night's homework, the teacher checking-off whether each student did the homework, and also time spent working on problems associated with the day's lecture (ie, "work time" in class). I think people aren't remembering how their 45/50 minute classes really were and think every minute was presentation of new material. I'd say one block class really does equal 2 traditional classes because those 2 days' worth of new material, discussion, homework check, review, answering questions, etc. all get done in one day.

Regular classes have a mix of things as does block. However, the concern is that the ratio of independent work to total class time over a 10-day period is higher with block than with regular schedule, given the need to provide shifts in focus to break up the longer class period.

PP's original comment about preferring to miss a block rather than two regular classes suggests the student misses less content with block due to more group work.

I'm the PP. To sum-up: I'm suggesting (1) that they don't lose "more" content (maybe they lose less, depends on the class and what's going on at the time); (2) they don't lose the same level of content in ALL classes because all classes don't meet every day; and (3) it enables students to get caught-up more easily with less stress from time constraints of having to do make-up work and get up to speed on new/missed content for classes meeting the next day every day v. having a day between for each subject.

If a student is out for one day, they clearly only have to catch-up in 3 or 4 classes (one of which is a short, everyday class) instead of 7
If a student misses two days, it's "even" but they don't have to get everything done in one night to be caught-up because not all classes meet the next day
If a student misses the whole week, they're likely able to keep at least somewhat up-to-date with all the online work and assignments; miss 3 classes for some subjects and only 2 classes for the others; and can better manage their work and time to get back up to speed because they aren't both behind AND getting new content/assignments in every class every day.

How about we all ask our kids if they'd rather miss half their classes one day or all of them?

I have asked my kid who had block. She hated it.

I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread that HB kids tried block and voted to go back to traditional.

It’s truly astounding how much privilege that schools gets, with capped school size, marquee building, traditional periods — and I’m always amazed at how many siblings get in — WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

This person is starting to fascinate me. They must spend their whole day on DCUM just waiting for a brief mention of HB, and then when someone mentions it.... they pounce! It would be entertaining (in a sad way) except it's the same old tired drivel. Maybe get some new material?

Probably one of the same moms screaming that a regular ES/MS couldn’t go in Rosslyn and effectively forced HB to move.

Talk about moving goal posts. EVERYONE was fine with a neighborhood ES in Rosalyn, they are about 500 students, vs 1000 student MS, compared to 700 at HB.

And yes, I did kick HB out off the largest acreage MS property in APS partly because they refused to expand the program. So your welcome; the county did an end run and blew their budget on the Heights so still managed to screw the rest of us.

Bullcrap. Everyone was not fine with an ES or MS in Rosslyn.

Stop b1tching about HB being in a new building when you put them there.

1) ES was NEVER on the table. You are delusional. The proposed MS would be !300! More students than currently at HB

2) I don’t begrudge them a new building, it’s the excess “architectural digest” elements and LEED awards that knew capped APS capital budget. Obviously they needed a new building to replace the one room school house that was there before.

You are just happy to be at HB and basically opportunity hoard with the better policies (periods), capital expenditures, and obvious political connections that are somehow getting siblings thru the lottery.