On Wednesday, April 17, the faculty of Gabrielino High School voted on two schedule proposals for the 2019-2020 school year. Neither proposal was passed.
Known as Trial Week #1 and Trial Week #2, each schedule included embedded time for students to participate in study hall, enrichment classes or receive academic assistance. Both schedules also featured, to varying degrees, longer class periods.
Trial Week #1, which was tested during the week of Jan. 28, was a rotating block schedule with each class period being held four times during the week, for 90 minutes. Each day of the week began with a different period and ended with either first or sixth period.
Embedded time for this schedule was held twice during the week, on Tuesday and Thursday, for 59 minutes. The intention of embedded time was to provide in-school intervention for struggling students.
Students with more than one D or F received assistance and tutoring during the embedded time, and those not targeted for intervention were able to sign up for either a study hall or an enrichment class.
Trial Week #2 occurred during the week of Mar. 4. This schedule included 75-minute block classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and Gabrielino’s current schedule on Monday and Friday.
Two 56-minute embedded time periods were held during Trial Week #2 on Tuesday and Thursday, similar to Trial Week #1, however, this time students were able to obtain “silver slips” to leave their study hall and go to a teacher in a subject for which the student needed minor assistance. Students in intervention or enrichment courses were not given the option of silver slips.
In order for one of the trial schedules to be implemented next year, it needed to receive 66% approval from the total number of faculty ballots cast. Preferences were split and neither proposal met this percentage, despite intense interest, as well as scrutiny, by the faculty.
According to an email sent to the faculty by Principal Sharron Heinrich on April 18, the vote on the schedule proposals was “the highest turnout GHS has ever had.”
While the teacher surveys indicated an overwhelmingly positive view of embedded time and its incorporation into the school schedule, with 94% seeing the “the value of this time for students,” the format of each trial week divided people in the voting.
In the student survey, students overwhelmingly preferred Trial Week #2 to Trial Week #1, 80% to 19%, respectively. However, students were not as enthusiastic about the effectiveness of embedded time as the teachers were with 55% indicating that they “could take it or leave it.”
Each proposed schedule had been heavily researched, discussed, and designed by Gabrielino’s Data Team, which visited high schools throughout California to observe successful block schedules with embedded time.
