High school to see major scheduling changes

PUNXSUTAWNEY — There was news of change coming to the Punxsutawney Area School District at Thursday’s meeting.

More specifically, the Punxsutawney Area High School is going to change to be more efficient in the way that students learn.

Paul Hetrick and Manny Barbazzeni, co-principals at PAHS, said they are switching to a block schedule, which will bring about major changes as to how the school day is laid out and classes are taught.

Hetrick said it is the most effective use of resources.

“We have the best approach, and department heads agree that it’s an idea we want to go with,” Barbazzeni said. “Ridgway, my former district, does block scheduling and we see how they approach their classes is completely different than we do here.”

He said they presented the plans to the rest of the staff. The teachers saw it in action and loved it, he said.

“The schedule, as you can see would be every other day ... 7:35 a.m., teachers would arrive at school, and the first period is at 7:50 a.m., and they would be 70 minutes long,” he said.

Hetrick said the first period would be the arrival of breakfast and would be 80 minutes long.

There will also be 13 minutes at the end of the day, providing more time to collaborate on content top to bottom with students and teachers.

Dr. Thomas Lesniewski, superintendent, said they will give out more information as it develops and are planning to put this into operation for the next school year. In other business:

• Carol Roberts, Punxsutawney, asked the board for permission to use the tennis court behind the administration building for pickleball.

The board gave a verbal OK to permit the Punxsy Pickleball Club to use the court.

Board member Matt Kengersky said the board should permit the club to clean the court with a water hookup and paint lines for pickleball.

It was decided that more information would be needed before any painting was done.