Burrell schools mull new schedules for reconfigured buildings

Burrell School District parents and staff are taking a close look at schedules at Bon Air Elementary and Huston Middle schools as both buildings prepare to accommodate an extra grade next year.

With the closure of Stewart Elementary, fourth graders will attend Bon Air and fifth graders will be sent to Huston, the school board decided last fall. Since then, task forces at Bon Air and Huston, each comprising roughly 20 parents and staff, are reviewing plans from Burrell administrators on building reconfigurations and schedules at those schools.

Classroom reconfigurations already have been solidified. Class schedules still need to be arranged.

The proposed schedules were presented to each task force this week. Superintendent Shannon Wagner anticipates them to be finalized before March.

Huston proposal

The proposed Huston schedule maintains classroom instruction time, condenses “enrichment remediation” time from two periods per day to one resource/activity period, and accounts for social studies and science classes to occur every day in sixth through eighth grades., said Huston Principal Travis Welch.

“The time that we have with our kids is precious,” he said. “To go to less time would be very challenging. We wanted everyone to maintain the same amount of time, or more.”

The combined resource/activity period will be called “Buc Time” and will be in the middle of the day, around lunchtime. Each grade level will have its own 30-minute lunch period.

Band and choir would be a scheduled course for students who take them.

Science and social studies classes are included everyday for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students.

“(Students) felt like not having it everyday, it didn’t feel like it was as meaningful to them,” Welch said.

‘Retooling’ related arts classes

Wagner said the proposed fifth grade schedule is similar to what they currently have at Stewart, and adds two specials — courses such as art, music and physical education — per day. For the rest of the middle school, “all we’ve done is reorganize the day,” Wagner said.

“I want to make our (arts and humanities) curriculum, our classes, more impactful for kids … by essentially digging more into an arts and humanities course, and having more time in that course than they had previously, it’s going to allow for a little bit more depth,” Welch said.

Welch anticipates changing the specials to trimesters so fifth and sixth grade students can optimize time in those courses. He said administrators are entertaining the idea to “retool” specials for seventh and eighth grade students to make them more career-focused.

Bon Air schedule

A major difference on Bon Air’s proposed schedule from what the school currently does also deals with “specials,” which Bon Air administrators call “Creativity and Innovation” courses. That plan, presented Tuesday, calls for grade-level teachers and specials teachers to collaborate or cross over their lessons, when appropriate, said building Principal Jim Croushore.

Currently, when a class is at a specials course, grade-level teachers use that time as a planning period. The proposed schedule has all grade-level teachers’ planning period when students are not in the building.

Wagner said the idea behind the plan is to have grade-level teachers participate with the specials teachers for the lesson, so that a natural connection is facilitated among all coursework that students have.

“It’s so the children, ultimately, see art as a part of history, or math; so that the context is not so isolated as they are now,” Wagner said.

Members of the Bon Air task force reviewed the plan and are scheduled to present their feedback to administrators next week.

Wagner said administrators also are reviewing the district’s busing schedule, looking to see if they can be made more cost-effective. That could include changing start times at buildings and reducing bus runs, although nothing has been decided, she said.

She said administrators are playing with the idea of starting elementary school earlier and secondary grades later.

“We are working with busing now to see what is feasible, if anything is feasible,” Wagner said.