Block Scheduling: Good or No Good?

By: Lily Ronney

For so many years, teachers and administrators have been looking for better ways to schedule their school days in order to maximize the amount of information students receive. An option that has been implemented by roughly 30% of the nation’s High Schools is block scheduling. Block scheduling is a way to reconfigure a student’s schedule, usually containing four or five classes, some lasting two hours. Not every class meets every day, and each class usually meets three times a week. Kyle Wilson, who graduated from Saint Monica’s High School last year believes “It was easier. You don’t have to go to every class every day, and it gives you a break from two classes every other day, which gives you less homework.” This way of scheduling also gives more time for each teacher to instruct, and loses less time to passing periods.

Both students and teachers can benefit from block scheduling. For many schools, the advantages of this scheduling greatly outweigh the disadvantages. Having longer classes without interruption gives better reinforcement of information, and less time is needed for review. Other noted advantages are: fewer failing grades and less homework; more time for labs, speakers, exams, in-depth topics, and teacher planning; less stress; and reduced drop-out rates.

Even though all of these possible advantages exist, many schools still are unwilling to avert to this different type of scheduling. Many schools would find the change too difficult to make such drastic changes; teachers and students alike would see many differences that could be detrimental. Some classes that need more emphasis would receive more time, but some would just involve extra time for nothing, and would just become tedious; imagine having nearly two hours of class for biology, pre-calculus, or P.E.

This scheduling could be beneficial to El Segundo, but it would be very difficult to change, and the alteration would take much time and energy. Many people would be reluctant to have such a confusing schedule, and it would be much easier to forget. For El Segundo, it would be unwise to change, but can give a great edge to new schools, and helps those who already have the scheduling in place.