DHS switches to trimester schedule

In the past year, the school has added Mandarin Chinese to its class roster and made significant changes in the order that educators teach science.

This fall, the school will address its schedule.

With state credit requirements for graduation rising from 20 to 22, DHS had to increase the number of classes offered to its students. Its current, six-hour schedule only provided an opportunity for students to earn 24 credits over four years, severely limiting the number of electives available and making credit recovery a difficult undertaking.

After nearly a year of research, the DHS administration and Dyersburg City Schools Superintendent Lloyd Ramer chose to implement the trimester system at the beginning of the 2009-2010 academic year.

"I think we are going to do some really exciting things," Ramer told Dyersburg City School Board members when they voted to accept the trimester schedule at the March meeting. "We are going to have more opportunities than ever before."

Changing from a six-hour semester system to a trimester system will not change the length of the school day or the school calendar in any way. The school day will soon begin and end at the same time and school breaks and holidays will remain the same.

Instead, class schedules will change within existing school hours, lengthening teaching time and dividing the year into fall, winter and spring trimesters with five classes per day.

"(The trimester system offers) five periods of approximately 72 minutes each," said Dyersburg Middle School/DHS Counselor Connie Wright, who is currently transitioning from the middle school to the high school and has begun meeting with both parents and students on the new schedule. "The courses are 12-weeks long and each course will give the student one-half credit. That is seven and one-half credits per year, or 30 credits over four years."

DHS administrators recently returned from a trip to Michigan, where they toured four different schools with populations of 2,200 to 300,000 students, all in different stages of using the trimester system.

"Probably the best thing we did was visit some schools who are using trimesters," said DHS Principal Mickey Mahon. "We visited schools who have used trimesters from one to four years in Michigan. (We learned) the mistakes they made that we won't have to make on the front end. One school had four schedules in five years. And we talked to the kids about how they liked the trimester system. It was time well spent before we go on this adventure."

Before the state's increase in credit hours, DHS administrators were pleased with their schedule and the integrity of their academic program, but the schedule would not withstand the increase in credits now required by the state.

"The state changed its credit requirements from 20 to 22," said DHS Curriculum Coordinator Kim Worley. "That's why we even started to change the day schedule, to provide more flexibility for our students."

"The Tennessee Diploma Project came about and we had to change what we were doing," said Wright. "We didn't think the wheel was broken."

Worley said DHS administrators chose the trimester system as the best choice for their students. It is a system that offers greater opportunities for students at both the top and the bottom of the class.

"We asked ourselves what did we really want to get out of this schedule?" said Worley. "We have some students who need remediation during the day and honor students will receive great enrichment opportunities during the school day. We wanted to give those opportunities so that those ACT scores can be enhanced, because we know that's where the (scholarship) money comes from."

"We wanted to be sure the integrity of our transcripts stayed top notch," said Wright. "(To make sure) that the courses the students take still teach them what they need to know for the ACT and for college."

"This schedule favors both ends of the scale," said Worley. "It favors high-achieving students with a wide range of courses for enrichment, additional advanced-placement courses and additional instruction time within those courses. For the students who struggle, this also offers the remediation time for them that they so desperately need."

Worley said peer tutors will also be available to help students who are struggling.

"Junior and seniors will be able to sign up to be peer tutors in English and math," said Worley. "That's a great opportunity for both students."

The new longer class periods will also allow students to attend classes at Dyersburg State Community College and the Tennessee Technology Center at Newbern.

"The students actually have 15 different courses over the year," said Wright. "Of course, the larger courses will still be yearlong. (For example,) English might be divided into English Lit, English Grammar and English Writing."

Certain courses will remain yearlong including advanced-placement courses, dual-enrollment courses, Geometry 9, Algebra I and English.

The new schedule will allow DHS to offer additional accelerated classes, as well. Possible classes on the 2009-2010 roster include AP Calculus, Speech, AP World History and Spanish III.

"(Before this week,) we've shown it to all these grown-ups," said Wright, who spent a couple of days last week meeting with juniors and seniors on the new scheduling system. "(I've explained it to the students,) told them the very basics - three blocks of 12 weeks. Five classes. They didn't have a question or any negative comments. But their eyes get happy and bright when they see they have an opportunity to do some things (they are interested in)."

"This is not the easiest schedule for the administration," said Worley. "It is not what is best for the administration in our building and it is definitely not what is best for the counselors. But it is what is best for our students."

"We will have three schedules to fill out, three report cards," said Wright. "(but) Today and yesterday (showing it to the students) convinced me that this is true. It's the same teachers, the same knowledge. We still have high expectations of our students. That they are going to learn the curriculum and be successful on the ACT test."

Worley said she has great confidence that DHS educators will rise to the occasion and make the new schedule work.

"We were very cautious in choosing a schedule, because we could not increase the size of our faculty. We wanted to provide a quality education with our same staff," said Worley. "Our teachers have a great deal of work to do. Mr. Ramer has given us the opportunity for our teachers to receive professional development. And we have some of the very, very best teachers in the state of Tennessee. They will do whatever it takes to make it successful."

Athletics like football and girls' and boys' basketball will continue the tradition of scheduling time for its players within the school day, but will only take two trimesters to complete, instead of an entire year.

Administrators expect a certain amount of uneasiness from parents and the general public until the changes from semesters to trimesters becomes routine. But school officials welcome questions and request that parents be involved in the transition.

"We encourage parents to make an appointment with the school counselor to go over their child's transcript and see their plan for next year," said Wright. "We will do whatever we can to make parents feel a part of the process. To help them understand what their student is doing throughout the day and see how that relates to what they want to do in the future."