Number of High School Periods Will Remain at Nine

The number of periods in a school day at the district's two high schools will remain at nine for the 2011-2012 school year.

The board of education had entertained the idea of reducing the number of periods from nine to eight, but the board "felt that it did not have enough time to assess the impacts in terms of electives, what the impacts would be to higher-level students, what the impacts would be to lower-level students and their needs for remediation," said board President Robert Ceberio at Thursday's public work session.

"The board just wanted to be conservative in its approach and didn't want to do anything that could hinder the educational experiences of our high school students," Ceberio said.

Ceberio said the matter will be discussed for the 2012-2013 school year.

"We told the principals and administrators this year is they should start working immediately on various models and scheduling approaches so that we could have it well vetted and well thought out for the next year," Ceberio said.

High school principals Scot Beckerman and Robert Reis discussed the proposed change with the board at a March 1. The reduction in periods had several possible consequences, including: A reduction in the number of study halls, going from two years of language instruction to one and increasing class times from 42 minutes to 48 minutes.