When you think of a typical day in high school, you probably think of chaotic hallways filled with students every 50 minutes, short periods, and rushed lesson plans. However, this is no longer the norm for many schools across the country.

Block scheduling has become a phenomenon that countless schools, including Batavia High School have adopted. According to educationworld.com, more than 50% of high schools in the United States have either considered or adopted block scheduling.  The system entails longer class periods and fewer classes during the day. There are three widely used block scheduling systems; the alternate-day schedule, the 4/4 semester plan, and the trimester plan.

The alternate-day block scheduling system allows students to go to each class every other day for a longer period of time than they would if they went to the class every day. The main goal of this type of scheduling is for students to have more time to be engaged in class and be more productive, as well as having two nights to complete their homework for the class as opposed to one.

The 4/4 Semester plan is a system in which students take four year long courses over the course of one quarter. With this system class periods are about ninety minutes long. The 4/4 Semester plan’s goal is to have students focus on a lighter course load while still learning the same amount of information and taking the same amount of classes as they would with a regular schedule.

The trimester plan is similar to the 4/4 Semester plan but is organized slightly differently. With this type of schedule students take two to three classes per trimester, also achieving the goal of giving students a lighter course load with the same amount of information.

GHS has a conventional scheduling system, but has looked into block scheduling in the past. “GHS has explored the concept of block scheduling and had conversations about whether or not it is something that would work well here and ultimately decided it was not something we wanted to change to,” Principal Rogers said.

“I believe that it would benefit certain populations of students, but I don’t necessarily believe it would benefit the entire student population,” Mr. King, guidance counselor department chair, said.

Schools that have converted to a block scheduling system have benefited from longer class periods because both students and teachers have found it easier to be more productive with more time, and because teachers see less students during the day they are able to give more individualized attention to their students.

However, there have also been drawbacks to this system. Some students do not go to every one of their classes every day, and therefore are not continuously learning the information. In addition to this, classes have to be taught in a shorter amount of time which can make it difficult to cover the entire curriculum, especially when it comes to AP courses.

“It is not something that seems to be on the to-do list for us,” said Mr. Rogers.