Despite a campaign by Anne Arundel County school officials to sell the idea of four-period days to teachers and the public, many remain skeptical about the proposed middle and high school schedules.
At a public hearing last night in the Old Mill High School auditorium attended by hundreds of students, parents and teachers, Superintendent Eric J. Smith and school board members listened to testimony from scores of people - most of them opposed to the schedules.
Many high school students said that the schedule proposed for them, which cuts down total instructional time in each subject, would make it more difficult for them to succeed in rigorous advanced placement (AP) courses.
Among teachers who testified, a recurring complaint was the increase in workload that many instructors would experience.
Several parents and teachers said they were concerned that instruction time in science and social studies in the middle school plan is being sacrificed to boost time spent on language arts and math.
Last month, the superintendent announced a plan to impose uniform schedules on the county's 12 high schools and 19 middle schools, which currently operate on six-, seven- or four-period days.
Since then, Smith has met with groups of teachers and community members to hear their concerns.
The superintendent also briefed the school board, whose input on the issue he said he wants, although he does not need its support to implement his plan.
Smith has said he is unlikely to deviate significantly from the plan he has laid out, but still wants to hear from the community.
A second and final public hearing on the matter is scheduled at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the school board headquarters.
Officials say the new high school schedule - under which students would take four 86-minute classes one day, and four different classes the next, for a total of eight in a year - would reduce useless transition time between shorter, more frequent classes.
It also would enable students to take more classes than they currently can on schedules such as the six-period day, which most county high schools use.
High achievers would be able to use the extra class periods to take a greater variety of advanced classes, and lower-performing students would be able to take support classes during the normal school day, according to officials.
But several students criticized the loss of instructional time under the new plan, which squeezes 36 hours a year out of each subject, or the equivalent of nearly eight weeks worth of the current hourlong classes.
Effect on AP classes
Students in AP classes "need every minute they can get" in order to prepare for the year-end test that counts for college credit, said Lauren Guanti, a senior at Severna Park High School.
Jen Petrin, an AP art history teacher at Old Mill High, said she doesn't know how she will be able to get through all her material.
"We have a 900-page book," she said. "It scares me to death that I will have to teach it in [less time]. It's just not going to be enough time [for students] to process what is covered."
Some students said they don't want the extra periods to take more classes - the high school plan's biggest benefit, according to officials - because there aren't enough classes they are interested in taking.
Middle schools
The proposed middle school schedule drew fire from parents and teachers for its increased emphasis on language arts and math at the expense of time in science and social studies.
In the middle school plan, three 86-minute periods each day would be devoted to the core academic subjects.
Language arts and math would run yearlong, but science or social studies would be one semester.
The remaining daily slot would be filled by one of three rotating noncore classes, such as music or physical education.
"To de-emphasize science and social studies in this day and age is really doing a disservice to students," said Steve Thompson, who has two children in the Meade feeder system.
Thompson also said noncore subjects, known as "encore," will suffer under the proposed three-day rotation because the classes meet so infrequently, sometimes only once a week.
Several people criticized the superintendent for excluding the public from the decision-making process.
Principals' view
The new schedules were recommended by principals after they studied the issue for several months.
Robert A. Silkworth, a foreign language teacher at North County High School, told Smith that he should have appointed a committee of teachers, students and parents to study scheduling options, as counties such as Howard have done.