ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603250032
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
After a two-hour discussion among Montgomery County School Board members, administrators, teachers and parents, attitudes about block scheduling are still clear as mud.
School Board members requested an update on how the new schedule was working in Christiansburg and Shawsville high schools - even though the results of teacher, student and parent surveys are based only on two or three six-week periods.
The amount of training and planning time for teachers seemed to split the two schools into two camps: those at Shawsville who generally support block, and those at Christiansburg who still aren't convinced that the switch was a wise move.
Last spring, the board agreed to change the schedules. Under the new scheduling, students take four 90-minute classes each semester. Previously, they had seven 45-minute classes that lasted the entire year.
Carl Pauli, a science teacher at Christiansburg High School, and Shawsville High School English teacher Marsha Murphy praised the extra time block scheduling provides.
"I have time to test and retest if need be," Murphy said. "I have adequate time to cover information in more than one way."
Murphy said the 90-minute planning period for teachers at Shawsville had been a blessing. Only 13 percent of Christiansburg teachers had a full hour and a half of planning time this year.
Christiansburg Principal George Porterfield said the contrast stems from a difference in the size of the schools. Teachers are needed more often for lunch or other duties at the larger Christiansburg school, but he said his goal is to "get more creative with duty scheduling" so that eventually all teachers will have the full 90 minutes to plan.
Christiansburg also failed to prepare teachers adequately for the switch, Pauli said.
"We really needed specific strategies on how to teach on block, not just general teaching practices," he said. Eighty-one percent of Shawsville teachers said they had adequate training in block teaching strategies last summer; only 35 percent of Christiansburg teachers agreed.
Connie Smith, Christiansburg PTA president, said the move to block was made too quickly.
"We asked for an additional two years' time to work on the situations which are occurring now, and no one listened. ... There is plenty of time to make corrections or whatever is necessary," she said.
School Board members said they look forward to receiving another update next year, but took no action on the matter.
Superintendent Herman Bartlett had stated previously that the county's other two high schools - Auburn and Blacksburg - would not switch to block scheduling for at least another year.
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