Hudson High Adopts New Schedule

by Cassie Moran

Ninety minute classes and four blocks will soon be a thing of the past at Hudson High.  There will be a new schedule implemented for the 2013-2014 school year. Instead of four daily blocks, ninety minutes each, we will have rotating schedule with 5 daily blocks, each lasting seventy minutes.

“There will be seven full year blocks,” says principal Brian Reagan, “eight if you take a semester elective.” Students will be required to take the same academic courses, but a wellness course of health and physical education will be required, and students will have the core classes for a full year.

“I think the rotation in the schedule will improve productivity,” says art teacher Emily Farbman. “Some students who struggle at a particular time within the day are always hitting the same class at that time of day. With the rotation, highs and lows will be better distributed.”

“I think this is what students need,” says Reagan. Low standardized test scores such as MCAS and SATs helped prompt the changes. In 2011, of 358 districts, on the tenth grade math MCAS, Hudson was rated 190. In Hudson, twenty  percent of students got a needs improvement, while only eighteen percent got a needs improvement in the state.

“Our hope is a more consistent dose of academics will help learning,” Reagan says of the changes.

“My second semester students only have me for six or seven weeks before they have to take the MCAS,” says English teacher Carol Hobbs. ” Now, all students will have equal advantage in performing well on that standardized test.”

“Students will have sixteen more hours annually of the core classes, allowing teachers to stretch out the curriculum and teach at a different pace,” adds Reagan.

Teachers may generally like the schedule, but some students have grown accustomed to our schedule.  “I like the schedule. It works. I don’t want it to change,” says freshman Madison Peck. ” We got a lot done in our classes; the day seems so short only having four blocks.”

However, not all students agree. ” I hate the current schedule,” says freshman Julia Wilkinson. ” It is really annoying. The blocks are too long. I can’t wait for it to change.”

The new schedule will definitely mean some changes for the science classes. “We will have to develop new physics courses to populate the extra classes that are created by the new schedule,” says science teacher Robert Van Buren. “For science, the block setup was perfect. It wasn’t perfect for some of the other content areas. For physics, I obviously prefer the block schedule.”

The changes to the schedule will take effect next year, with new, shorter classes and longer learning time, hopefully leading to a spike in standardized test scores.