Proposed Schedule Bringing Change

Andrew Vojt ‘12
EE Co-Editor-in-Chief

With NEASC, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, coming to evaluate Trumbull High in October, 2013 school year, changes are in order. The plans will address underlying scheduling issues, and this means changes for students next year.

It is necessary for our school to be approved by NEASC. Without their accreditation, our diplomas are no more than a piece of paper. In order to continually improve, NEASC has outlined three areas of improvement for THS: the extensive lunch periods, the lack of scheduled teacher collaboration, and the addition of advisory groups to help provide an adult mentor beyond a guidance counselor.

Primarily, our 47 minute lunch periods are a “...loss of instructional time,” according to Dr. Tremaglio. In order to shorten each lunch period while also maintaining the same duration of each period of the day means a modification of the homeroom system.

Under the proposed plan, students would pass to their scheduled homeroom for the first thirteen minutes of the period and then attend their lunch period for the next half an hour.

Homeroom teachers would depend on teacher’s scheduling for that semester, and the students in that particular homeroom would be un-alphabetized and allocated depending on the lunch wave. The teacher would not stay with the student all four years, and video announcements would be pre-recorded and played.

The second main issue that Trumbull High needs to address for NEASC is greater teacher collaboration, defined as teachers working with teachers in determining what needs to be done to realize continuous improvement. Previously, only two full school days, known as Teacher Development Days, had been set aside for this type of discussion, along with another over the summer.

However, the proposed plan is to maximize the collaboration during school day. Dr. Tremaglio stated that the analysis of professional development needs to be “...different from the way we do it here, so we have to build collaboration in.”

The new schedule will include increased collaboration. Eight days throughout the year may be dedicated to Advisory Days, where students come in ninety minutes late to school, with those ninety minutes set aside for teacher collaboration.

During a thirty minute period after teacher collaboration, students would attend an Advisory period. During this period, the students and a teacher “advisor“ would fulfill “common opportunities” such as career searching, college planning, student success talks, and guidance visits. The advisor would follow their group of students throughout all four years of high school.

This Advisory period provides both a frequent and continuous approach to a need for educational change at THS

“I think we have great relationship with our students and staff and guidance, but NEASC wants a formal piece of that… we have homeroom, but we don’t think it’s enough,” said Dr. Tremaglio.

With the Advisory Homeroom, students cement positive relationships with the staff in the homeroom period. However, this new schedule is not without its implication. Trumbull High has many unique programs, including Aquaculture, Agriscience, and The Regional Center for the Arts (RCA).

Dr. Tremaglio mentioned that having different sorts of schedules “...really wreaks havoc in student’s schedules and how they do business.” Over time, the new schedules, should “...not make a big difference in the day… [they] actually honor the student more than anything else,” said Dr. Tremaglio. However, it could prove difficult to upperclassmen who have adjusted to the current schedule throughout their high school career.

But with efforts to improve the educational process for NEASC, the new schedules give the school “...a much greater chance of being successful,” said Superintendent Ralph Iassogna. Look for instant change at the start of next year.