UDSB gives final OK to new high school schedule
School board members returned to the topic of a new school schedule Tuesday evening before giving it final approval. The new schedule calls for a later start time and less in-person instruction for the high school.
The new schedule stems from sleeps studies which show that teenage students do better when they have a later start time for school.
Last week the board voted to move forward a recommendation from a subcommittee to flip the current schedule at the high school and provide asynchronous classes in the early morning and in-person education beginning at 9:45 a.m.
The early morning classes will be begin at 7:30, but will be asynchronous learning. Asynchronous classes are pre-recorded lectures or digital curriculum materials that don’t require a set time to view them. Wednesdays will be an alternative day for students’ specific needs.
The scheduling will allow the district to reach the required mandates for required hours. An in-person 30-minute flex period is also available for additional inperson support.
Students in low incidence special needs curriculum will attend in-person all day classes.
Superintendent Dr. Daniel McGarry said officials are working to remain transparent with the proposal. He said there was a survey that went out over a year ago regarding the sleep study. At that time, the district did not have the million dollars that would have been necessary to implement it. With federal money coming in as a result of the pandemic, technology updates have allowed the district to move forward.
McGarry said they have received questions about starting school at 8:30 and ending it at 4 P.M. That, however, would create contractual issues and school activity issues as well as transportation issues.
He said school administrators
are trying to use the technology and what they’ve learned from the pandemic to provide flexibility to students and the community.
He said 70 percent of students that responded to a survey that went out Tuesday were in favor of seeing the schedule change.
“A lot of time and effort went into this over the last year and a half to two years to make these decisions,” McGarry said. “I hope if anything, regardless of the outcome of this decision tonight, that everybody in this community understands how complex it is to lead this organization and be the principal of a school like Upper Darby High School and make these decisions.”
After questions from residents that the proposed 10 minute lunch was too short, the district administrators offered an addendum to last week’s presentation.
Principal Kelley Simone said after receiving feedback on the proposed schedule, they altered plans to accommodate a longer lunch period. They did this by removing the homeroom period from the schedule and added time to the flex period which will become 36 minutes. This eliminated students from having to change locations.
“Students can use the 36 minute flex time to work and eat and not have to rush to the 10 minute home room period,” Simone said.
This change also allowed them to add time to the synchronous in-person periods to 60 minutes each. The early morning asynchronous periods are 21 minutes.
“Again, this schedule provides the flexibility, allows all students to attend school in-person daily and does not impact the programs or access to electives, and for most are multiple pathways to graduation,” Simone said.
“It is certainly true that the team that worked on this … 100 percent listened to the feedback they got,” said board member Dr. Meredith Hegg. She noted the committee committed to remain with a block schedule as opposed to a yearlong period style schedule and they declined to use a cohort model which would reduce the number of students on campus at one time.
Hegg said she was concerned about the 10 minute lunch, but the team has turned around a new idea with a longer lunch period.
“These decisions aren’t easy to make,” while adding that she still has concerns about the asynchronous time and kids not having as much time to socialize.
“It’s so easy to see the negative of the new and forget about the negatives of the old,” Hegg said. “I’m convinced at this point - while I have concerns - they are balanced by benefits that I think we are going to get from this new schedule.”
She urged community members to continue to talk to officials to better understand the plans.
School board member Damien Warsavage thanked officials for their efforts and said he felt if he’d had this schedule during his days at Upper Darby, it may have helped him. However, he felt the plan would benefit from an extended period of public comment and was not ready to support that part of the proposal yet.
Board member Gina Curry acknowledged the concern of parents and teachers and added the decisions that are being made in the best interest of students.
Student school board representative Ummayah Siddiqua questioned the schedule. She said it was being implemented at the expense of learning and education, noting that for students taking multiple AP classes, taking away the ‘skinny period’ is taking away face-to-face instructional time from these students for an entire semester.
Skinny periods are a 37-minute classes, part of the block schedule in the pre-pandemic year that would be eliminated under the new plan.
“School, simply put, is a place where students come to learn. While these goals are supposed to enhance learning in our classrooms, there is nothing to enhance if our students are not in the classrooms in the first place,” Siddiqua said.
Assistant Principal James Finch addressed Siddiqua’s concerns, noting skinny periods often created conflicts for AP classes.
“Students couldn’t take every combination of two AP’s that were offered in the same semester,” Finch said. He also noted that in the 2019-20 school year, only 20 out of 3,850 students chose that option, which also required forgoing lunch both semesters. Finch said it is very difficult and challenging to attempt a schedule like that which is nearly double what is needed to meet Pennsylvania guidelines to graduate.
During the public comments at least one resident questioned less in-person teaching.
“I am sorry to sound dismissive but asynchronous class time is not class time at all. It is homework and it is an insult to my intelligence to pretend otherwise,” said Victor Rauch of Drexel Hill. “Class time is a live teacher teaching my child and next year my child will get much less of that, only four hours per day when it used to be more than six.”
Rauch said his child suffered during the pandemic from the lack of in-person teaching and the expectation that students will have the organizational skills to follow the complex schedule is not age-appropriate and beyond the executive function of many college students.
The plan passed on a voice vote, with board member Warsavage opposed.