Block scheduling in middle school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar with the background here. Why is he only trying to put it in place at one middle school?

He's not. I think they already rolled it out at the other MS. I think they all have to do it, or none. It's an issue of equity. WMS, if you fight this, you had better fight it for everyone (not just your school).

How is at an issue of equity? Arlington is filled with schools that are doing different things. This argument that if they do it in one school they have to do it in all of them doesn't track.

Because if the argument is that it hurts learning, then nobody should be doing it. It's not like you can just opt out of your neighborhood MS and transfer if you think block scheduling is affecting your child's academic performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's been proven that test scores drop across the board when there is block scheduling.

Do you think you could provide any back up to that claim?

I think you should read this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/fighting-over-school-fad-with-meager-results/2012/02/12/gIQAtH6n8Q_blog.html

The salient part:

"School Superintendent Patrick K. Murphy, who installed a block schedule when he was the principal of a middle school in Fairfax County, said regular-length periods are too short for the kind of creative teaching needed. “We are doing a disservice to students to run them through a seven-period day with a 45 minute turnaround,” he said.

...

"Another protesting parent, Tara Claeys, noted that Glasgow Middle School in Fairfax was returning to regular scheduling because its test scores dropped during three years of block scheduling."

Interesting. The article is 4 years old and Glasgow is back on block scheduling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar with the background here. Why is he only trying to put it in place at one middle school?

He's not. I think they already rolled it out at the other MS. I think they all have to do it, or none. It's an issue of equity. WMS, if you fight this, you had better fight it for everyone (not just your school).

They tried it at Swanson and dropped it, so no, it's not at all schools.

Murphy is incapable of learning.

TJ doesn't have block scheduling either, although the 6th graders do have an A/B schedule to alternate language class and PE. That's to accommodate the language requirement and different elective structure there for the IB program.

[Anonymous]

Our FCPS MS started with block scheduling this year. My DS adapted very easily and likes it. The pros are:

Less running around to classes each day
More time to get into a subject, spend time on a lab in class, do a project, practice, get extra help, etc. Before classes frankly were very rushed and they were not able to cover very much each day.
Homework for select classes each night as opposed to the potential for all core subjects each night. This allows for learning time management and planning ahead well before they really need it in HS.

They are getting the same amount of time per class. It's just organized differently. And, they still have the option for all electives. Overall, it's been an easy transition and a positive experience. While some of the cons mentioned are theoretical possibilities, they really haven't materialized. In the universe of things we need to worry about and stress over this isn't one of them.

[Anonymous]

I think most FCPS MS have a block schedule of some type, and all the HS. Our MS was one of the few that did not, but since my kid was there they have gone to a block schedule. My kid is really happy with block scheduling in HS and she finds it much easier to plan her HW and balance it with activities. I don't get why this is controversial?

[Anonymous]

H-B Woodlawn has block for middle school and its great, and I'm comparing directly to experience in another APS middle school. They have each class 4x a week. My eighth grader is in foreign language, band, and an elective which could not be fit into the schedule at the neighborhood school. Overall test scores at HB are fine compared to other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think most FCPS MS have a block schedule of some type, and all the HS. Our MS was one of the few that did not, but since my kid was there they have gone to a block schedule. My kid is really happy with block scheduling in HS and she finds it much easier to plan her HW and balance it with activities. I don't get why this is controversial?

Mostly because it kills music programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most FCPS MS have a block schedule of some type, and all the HS. Our MS was one of the few that did not, but since my kid was there they have gone to a block schedule. My kid is really happy with block scheduling in HS and she finds it much easier to plan her HW and balance it with activities. I don't get why this is controversial?

Mostly because it kills music programs.

how does it do that? My kid still takes Orchestra. Three classes per week. Same is true of the band and the chorus.

[Anonymous]

Qualifier: I am an elementary General Music Teacher in FCPS, so the music focus came naturally to me.

My son, who is now in 9th grade, had block scheduling in MS. For him, it 100% killed Band for him. He was doing great up until 7th. He even got put in the 8th grade band as a 7th grader. 90 minutes of Band was ROUGH. He said behavior was awful after 45 minutes or so, so the teacher had to spend too much time on redirecting, yelling, etc. As a music teacher, I think 90 minutes is a long time for young musicians to play and stay focused.

Now, in his second year, he took Drama instead. The Block schedule 90 minute class allowed them to do really cool things, and he LOVED that class. Now as a freshman, he is taking Chorus, and it seems his chorus teacher is very creative about really teaching them sight-reading, diction, phonetics, etc. so that they are not just straight singing the whole 90 minutes. I have heard no complaints that it is too long like he complained about Band.

We may just have had a boy who was losing interest anyway, but with all classes, teachers can be really creative about the longer classes. If they are not, 90 minutes can seem like a lifetime to Middle Schoolers.

He did really like having 2 days to get homework done, and not having every subject to do every day. That is probably his favorite part of Block Scheduling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think most FCPS MS have a block schedule of some type, and all the HS. Our MS was one of the few that did not, but since my kid was there they have gone to a block schedule. My kid is really happy with block scheduling in HS and she finds it much easier to plan her HW and balance it with activities. I don't get why this is controversial?

Mostly because it kills music programs.

Ours actually enjoyed it more with block scheduling. She said the longer class time allowed the teacher to work with each section more instead of being rushed. She also loved not having to take her instrument each day.

[Anonymous]

Swanson parents went batshit crazy when blocks were proposed a few years back. (My eldest was there at the time.) The cited reason was music. I had no opinion at the time. I can report that DC1 went on to have blocks in high school at W-L, and he much preferred it to regular scheduling. DC2 is in middle school now (not at Williamsburg), and I still have no opinion on block scheduling for middle schoolers. I suspect there are pros and cons to both and no clear winner for students, so who cares? I would not fight this, personally.

One thought: Doesn't block scheduling mean teachers teach more periods? kids have 8 periods instead of 7, that means someone must be teaching that 8th class. The cynic in me suspects that the reason administrators like block scheduling so much is that it somehow gets more work out of teachers without costing any more money.

[Anonymous]

I wish middle school electives were shorter than core classes. This would solve the issue of band being too long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swanson parents went batshit crazy when blocks were proposed a few years back. (My eldest was there at the time.) The cited reason was music. I had no opinion at the time. I can report that DC1 went on to have blocks in high school at W-L, and he much preferred it to regular scheduling. DC2 is in middle school now (not at Williamsburg), and I still have no opinion on block scheduling for middle schoolers. I suspect there are pros and cons to both and no clear winner for students, so who cares? I would not fight this, personally.

One thought: Doesn't block scheduling mean teachers teach more periods? kids have 8 periods instead of 7, that means someone must be teaching that 8th class. The cynic in me suspects that the reason administrators like block scheduling so much is that it somehow gets more work out of teachers without costing any more money.

No. Not where I work. Still 7 periods, just split up differently. First period meets 45 minutes every day. After that comes 2, 4, 6 on one day and 3, 5, 7 on the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swanson parents went batshit crazy when blocks were proposed a few years back. (My eldest was there at the time.) The cited reason was music. I had no opinion at the time. I can report that DC1 went on to have blocks in high school at W-L, and he much preferred it to regular scheduling. DC2 is in middle school now (not at Williamsburg), and I still have no opinion on block scheduling for middle schoolers. I suspect there are pros and cons to both and no clear winner for students, so who cares? I would not fight this, personally.

One thought: Doesn't block scheduling mean teachers teach more periods? kids have 8 periods instead of 7, that means someone must be teaching that 8th class. The cynic in me suspects that the reason administrators like block scheduling so much is that it somehow gets more work out of teachers without costing any more money.

No. Not where I work. Still 7 periods, just split up differently. First period meets 45 minutes every day. After that comes 2, 4, 6 on one day and 3, 5, 7 on the other.

My kids' high school has 4 blocks each day, 8 total periods.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the "block let's teachers get creative" line of thought. I'm a teacher. I can do creative stuff any day of the week. I don't need block to do it. Blocking doesn't add more time for me to work with my kids, it just shifts the timing of it all. I either teach distributive property on Monday and combining like terms on Tuesday on a 7 period schedule or I teach them both on Monday on a block schedule. I still have the same amount of curriculum to cover, I'm just being forced to double up topics when blocked. If I want to do a stations activity or something on the computers, I can do it on a traditional schedule just as easily as a block.

I can understand how block helps science with their labs. But most other subjects, I don't see the advantage.