We are excited to announce that we will have a new bell schedule for the 2023-2024 academic year. This schedule is the first major change to the bell schedule at CCHS in 20+ years. We believe the new schedule will better meet the current needs of students and staff and are proud of where things landed.
Why?
The current bell schedule has many embedded challenges. Some of these challenges include:
- Not all students have lunch every day.
- There is no time built into the school day for every student to get extra help from teachers, make-up work, or complete homework. This creates more stress at home and reduces the amount of sleep students get each night.
- The pace of the day for students and teachers is incredibly fast-paced within the current schedule.
- In four out of five days, the same block is first, and in four out of five days, the same block is last, creating inequitable learning experiences among sections.
- Some classes meet four times a week for a longer period and some meet five times a week for a short period, making it hard to plan and create continuity among sections.
Process
The CCHS Administration, Leadership Team, and Faculty started work to develop a new bell schedule in early 2020. However, in March 2020, COVID required us to shift our focus.
Last spring (May 2022), faculty and staff members re-engaged with the work by creating a Bell Schedule committee to develop different sample drafts. Throughout the process, the committee, the Administration, Leadership Team, and the Concord-Carlise Teachers Association (CCTA) met with students, teachers, and Administrators from other Districts (Lexington, Newton, Winchester) who had highly positive experiences with flex blocks and the benefits it brought to their school communities. After sharing several iterations and drafts with the whole faculty, various attributes were compared and contrasted, and those with the most support were further developed.
Benefits and Attributes
We are confident that the new bell schedule will benefit students and staff.
Flex Blocks
One of the most significant benefits to our schedule is the addition of two 56-min flex blocks per week. While we are still working out the exact logistics of these blocks, these will be a time when students can schedule themselves to meet with a teacher to get extra help, collaborate with a classmate, make up a test, go to the band room for extra practice, enjoy time in the gym, read a book in the library or complete homework in a classroom. Additionally, flex blocks will be a time when a teacher can require a student to come for extra help to either clarify a misconception or provide a small-group and focused learning experience.
We will seek feedback from students and staff over the coming months regarding flex blocks. The goal of flex blocks is to create time and space for students to get more work done during the school day and reduce the overall burden once they get home.
Lunch
Lunch will no longer be a block to be scheduled in the day, and all students and staff will have lunch every day. There will be two main lunches (first lunch, 11:00 - 11:41 am, and last lunch, 12:00 - 12:41 pm). Students will be assigned their lunch block based on the class/department adjacent to lunch on that given day. For example, if a student has a D block English class, they will have first lunch on Monday and Wednesday, and if the same student has an E block Math class, they will have last lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, and if the student has F block Social Studies, they will have first lunch on Friday. The example above is shown in the diagram below in red font.
The result of this method is that all students will have lunch every day.
Consistent Block Length and Rotation
While it might seem like a small matter, the consistency of block length across all five days simplifies processes and reduces cognitive load. Additionally, in the new schedule, there is a more equitable rotation between the first blocks of the day and the last blocks of the day.
Early Release
While not shown in the above bell schedule, we will have an early monthly release for high school students on Wednesdays (roughly 1:15 PM Dismissal). We are still refining these details but roughly once per month, students will be dismissed early.
Student Stress
Our goals and beliefs are that the new schedule will reduce student stress by providing flex blocks during the week and having increased consistency throughout the week. Additionally, there are multiple days during the week where only four blocks meet which reduces the amount of homework required on the previous nights.
Advisory
In our new schedule, there is no advisory. This time has been included in our Flex Blocks. We remain committed to providing Social-Emotional learning experiences for all of our students. We are already in discussions with our Guidance and Counseling department to discuss opportunities and ways in which this can happen. We believe that the increased time students may spend with a teacher or adult in the building during flex blocks will help them to have more and deeper connections with adults throughout the building. We will continue to have discussions to seek feedback and input.
Questions
If you have any questions or comments regarding the new schedule, please enter them on this google form. We will continue to provide updates about the new bell schedule as we revise details, and we will do our best to answer all of these questions in future communications.
Below is a recording of the presentation and slide deck that we did for students:
Recording - February 8, 2023. Also, here is the slide deck we used to present.
We will also be hosting a presentation and zoom for students and parents/guardians on Wednesday, February 15, 2023, at 7:00 PM.
Closing
We know that transitions can be hard, particularly for teenagers. We also recognize that change can be challenging when it is something as entrenched in school culture as a bell schedule. However, we firmly believe that the new schedule will create a better learning environment and decrease stress for all students. We are incredibly excited and confident about the possibilities the future will bring for our community.
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