High schools move to an 8-period day

High school students in the San Juan School District will have an eight-class period day in the coming school year. The new arrangement was approved at the February 16 meeting of the San Juan School Board.
High schools have had a seven-class period day in recent years. The one-class period a day increase is designed to help the schools facilitate increased collaboration between teachers, increase intervention efforts with students, coordinate distance education offerings , and provide more class offerings including core and career and technical education (CTE) courses.
Yet to be determined are possible changes in graduation requirements and the time for staff and faculty to meet in Professional Learning Community (PLC) groups to coordinate intervention efforts.
The PLC groups meet in both elementary and secondary schools.
The time for the approximately one-hour weekly PLC meetings will be after a late start or an early release for students. The board is considering a late start for school on Tuesday mornings, when students would begin at 8:30 a.m. rather than the standard 8 a.m. start time.
Instruction during the standard school day will finish at 3:11 p.m. On Friday, the eight-hour day will be similar to the current arrangement, with classes split into alternating four-hour sections before a 1 p.m. release time.
PLC groups have been meeting for more than a year in schools throughout the district. School officials are anxious to set aside time, during the contract day, to facilitate the PLC effort.
Research shows that giving faculty the time to collaborate on instructional efforts, and having focused interventions for struggling students, is a key to increasing the success of students.
All five high schools will have the same start and stop time for class during the first three and last three instructional periods of the day to facilitate the distance-delivered courses at the schools. Fourth and fifth hour classes, in addition to the lunch schedule, can be adjusted by the individual schools.
In other school news, Lance Hatch was named the new supervisor of the district’s six elementary schools. Hatch has served as the principal at Monticello Elementary School for the past seven years.
Hatch’s new position was created by the district in November. Previously, Ron Nielson served as the supervisor of all twelve schools in the sprawling district. Nielson will continue to supervise the secondary schools.
The school district eliminated two administrative positions to create the new supervisor position. The Navajo Mountain High School principal will become a head teacher. Nielson assumes the responsibilities of CTE director Cari Caylor. Caylor currently is the CTE director for both the San Juan and the Grand school districts.