New schedule to benefit students

Have you ever sat in an eight-hour meeting? How did you feel afterwards? Tired? Exhausted? Brain drain?

Now consider this, we ask our students to attend an eight-hour meeting every day. Literally every minute of a student’s days is scheduled from the moment they walk in the door to the moment the last bell rings. While this eight-hour day was the way the majority of us has been educated, we must ask ourselves, is this the type of education the 21st-century needs in order to set our students up for success in their college or career post-graduation?

After months of research, talking to dozens of other school officials, considering national trends, having honest conversations as a faculty, it has become clear — we must be willing to change the way that we instruct our students in order for them to be prepared for an ever-evolving 21stcentury world. Pea Ridge High School has decided to implement a new type of scheduling called Flex Mod where: “Time serves students, instead of students serving time.”

With Flex Mod scheduling, students will have the opportunity to model their life after high school. Various benefits include:

• Every student will have time every single day for “Independent Learning Time” (ILT). During this time, students will be able to get help with their questions with teachers during the school day. Essentially this allows students to complete the majority of their homework with the opportunity for tutoring during the school day.

• Students will be taught the importance of personal responsibility, respect and trust through raising expectations by give more student choice.

• Students will be able to attend classes of various lengths that match the needs of the specific needs of each course.

• Every student will be assigned a chrome book to use in their classrooms and at home, helping them master technology.

Of course, we know that many of our students are concerned about athletics and band. Under this schedule, both athletics and band will have the last hour of every day to practice and then continue their practices after school, if needed.

While we know that many of these ideas are major changes, many schools across the country have found success with flexible scheduling. In addition, through Pea Ridge Manufacturing and Business Academy, many of our students have shown that having the expectation of more responsibility, with choice and personalization, allows every one to be more prepared for life after graduation. Certainly, there will be a few growing pains for the first few months of this schedule. However, we truly believe that this schedule will strongly benefit all of our students in the long run.

Today we wanted to begin to introduce the idea, the rationale, and the benefits of Flex Mod. We believe that with this schedule, time will serve students, instead of students serving time. Flex Mod aligns much more to the college and career worlds post-graduation, while still allowing for athletics, band, tutoring, remediation, extensions, and personal responsibility at the high school level.

More information can be found at the Flex Mod tab under the Pea Ridge High School website. As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. We will be at the high school all this summer.

Best regards, JON LAFFOON PRHS principal AND PRHS SCHOOL LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBERS