As posted here previously, the NASD administration is again going to shake things up to see what happens. The public has been invited to comment on a plan to switch from quarters to trimesters for grades K-8.
I'm guessing we've used the quarter system for somewhere between 40 years and roughly forever, and the arguments made in favor of the switch amount to a more equitable distribution of teaching days (ie snow days, breaks, vacation, PSSA testing, and in-loading at the beginning of the new year are not evenly distributed).
What it won't do is increase the overall teaching time, so the change doesn't 'improve' this metric. It simply divides the year into thirds instead of quarters.
Who does this impact? Teachers.
To my understanding, the teachers themselves were not asked on a broad-base what they thought of this plan prior to announcing it and asking the public.
Teacher planning is currently based on quarters. They have to develop their plans based on having a certain quantity of work done within a quarter to provide students a fair grading system (ie tests, quizzes, reports, homework etc).
Moving to a trimester means every teacher will need to redesign their plans.
I'm not sure how many others schools use this system, but we were on the cutting edge of open-concept schools (Lower Nazareth, sit on the floor, no desks, no rooms) and we adhere to a flawed system of block scheduling at the high school, so I shouldn't be surprised we are looking to make another change for the sake of change.
The argument in favor of the plan was made by Mr. Roth and presented/distributed at a PTA meeting by Jennifer Allen at LNES and posted on this site (read it here)
Today the Express-Times had some comments from Mr. Roth and Board President Ken Butz (read it here)
1 comment:
When I was a student, Nazareth had a number of half year courses (two marking periods). That was back in the mid 80s, so that may have changed.
If they still have half year course, would they become a trimester course? A double trimester course? Dropped completely?
Some of my favorite courses were the half year electives and had me well prepared for college when I got there. The bio-chem and physics 2 courses were more advanced than my two starting college courses in those areas
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