Trimesters needed to cut class sizes, offer more classes

Linton-Stockton Junior High and High School may soon be attending school in trimesters instead of in two semesters.

The need to reduce class size and offer more classes has prompted the change.

High School Principal Nick Karazsia said the new scheduling offers benefits to both students and teachers.

Under the current six-period day, Karazsia said students attend six classes and have six different bosses. If five classes are offered, students will have five bosses.

"They have different people with different rules telling them what to do and because of that, it can be stressful on kids," he said. "On the trimester, with having five classes, we've now eliminated one of their bosses. It's one less thing they have to worry about."

Trimester scheduling will change the length of class periods. Currently, each class period is 53 minutes long; however, classes will last 70 minutes with trimester scheduling.

"You've now given the teachers an opportunity to do certain activities in class that maybe they couldn't do before," Karazsia said. "It gives them an opportunity to use more teaching strategies with students.

"We all know that all students don't learn the exact same way. Different students have different learning styles, as different teachers have different teaching styles. Now this gives the teacher the power to use different teaching styles to reach all their students because they have more time to do that."

Another benefit with trimesters, according to Karazsia, concerns failures.

He said that if a student fails freshman English, the next opportunity for them to take the class would be a year later. That student would have to take freshman and sophomore English at the same time.

"We're hoping we can build the schedule that if a student fails first semester English in the first semester, we can put them right back into first semester (English) the second semester. And in the third semester, they can take their second semester English and not be behind," he said.

Three years ago, the school was on a block schedule. With the block schedule, students had four classes that were 85 minutes long. While the school was on the block schedule, Karazsia said, there were less discipline referrals.

Karazsia said that adding more electives, such as vocational classes, will allow students who plan on pursing a career in the vocational area to get experience.

"This type of schedule will help those kids even more," he said.

He noted that discipline problems usually occur during passing periods or lunch.

"If you eliminate a class, you eliminate a passing period. You've now cut down on your discipline referrals," he said.

During the block scheduling, attendance was higher. Karazsia noted that he expects attendance to be higher with the trimester schedule as well.

"They knew if they missed a day, it would be like a day and a third of what they would normally miss."

With the longer periods, Karazsia said the number of failures decreased.

"Because teachers were using different strategies, there were more kids being successful. There weren't as many failures as there were on a traditional schedule," he said.

The new schedule will not only benefit students, but it will also benefit teachers.

With eliminating one class a day, teachers see less students. On average, teachers see 125-130 students each day. On a trimester, they will see 80-100 students.

"That still sounds like a lot, but that's still more attention they can give to those kids and not have to worry about that many more papers they have to grade or that many things they have to do," he said.

The school is conducting a series of public meetings to discuss the schedule change. The first meeting will be tonight at 7 p.m. in the high school auditeria. Other meetings are slated to begin at 7 p.m. in the high school auditeria on Jan. 27, Feb. 3 and Feb. 10.