Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 15, 1993                   TAG: 9305150062
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

FEWER CLASS PERIODS LOOKED AT FOR MORE LEARNING AT HIGH SCHOOL

That sounds like students would be getting fewer classes during their four high-school years. But, in this case, less is more.

They would cover the material that now takes a year in one semester. They could actually take more electives because there would be opportunities for eight classes a year - four each semester - instead of seven yearlong courses.

Each teacher also would have a 90-minute planning period each day under the restructuring.

The plan got the endorsement Thursday afternoon of the school's restructuring task force, which has been quietly working on the project since last fall. It was outlined to the School Board that same night.

The plan will be outlined for parents Monday and Tuesday.

The board is still studying the idea, and the task force is still fine-tuning it, but it could be in effect by the 1993-94 school year.

"I've never seen the kind of enthusiasm that I've seen at that high school," Superintendent William Asbury told the board. "I think we're really onto something."

Principal Thomas DeBolt said the traditional six-period day existed in his grandfather's, father's and his own school days, and the only change at Pulaski County is that a seventh period has been added.

But the "Cougar blocking" plan offers the chance for students to learn more, for teachers to know them better, more planning time for teachers and more subjects to be covered in a year, he said.

"I don't know why we haven't done it before. All I know is we'd like to do it now," said Frank Kasik, an English teacher at the school.

"This doesn't mean we're going to teach more. We're going to teach it better," Kasik said. "In a 48-minute class, you don't teach 48 minutes. . . . You'll be lucky to get 35 minutes."

The 90-minute classes would mean less start-up and cool-down time, fewer disruptions and a chance to immerse students in a subject. Teachers would know their students better and be better able to work with them, he said.

"We do a crazy thing six times a day. We throw 1,400 students into the hall six times a day," Kasik said. That is when most of the school's discipline problems happen, so the restructuring could reduce those, too.

In a class of 20 students, if a teacher spent three minutes with each student, "that's 60 minutes, and I've only got 48," he said.

Kasik noted the rejection by letter-writers in a recent informal poll taken by a Pulaski newspaper on willingness to be taxed more for education.

"We're not going to get any more money from taxes. The poll showed that," he said. "We've got to do better with what we have."

Redesigning the existing time is a way to do it, he said. "This is a plan designed by us. . . . It's student-centered."

Since the idea started being developed last fall, committee members have visited schools in other states where the concept has been tried.

"And invariably those people said `We would never go back,' " Kasik said. "It's not perfect, but certainly our present system is not perfect. We would like to see Pulaski County High School on the cutting edge."