The LCHS SBDM council approved a new bell schedule today at a special called meeting.
The new bell schedule will incorporate a new 20-minute period of academic time in order to meet state requirements for remediation in Math and Reading plus requirements for an advisory period by the Practical Living/Vocational Studies program review.
“Our new Cougar Academic Time will allow us to provide remediation to students in all areas assessed in the K-PREP testing system with an emphasis on the ACT. Students will be divided based on their academic needs and placed with a teacher of that content area. For example, if a student is just a couple of points away from benchmark on the ACT in math, they will be with a math teacher to practice skills in math for this 20-minute time frame,” says principal Casey Jaynes. “We will rotate sessions every week between academic areas, incorporate our club meeting times and begin an advisor/advisee period during these sessions.”
Many hours of research and discussion guided this decision. “I would like to especially thank Amy Hallman, Marisa Hopkins, and Alissa Todd for their work in planning this program. We have looked at this for some time, and they have developed the best solution possible. Since the program review process will be 23% of our KPREP score next year, we needed to implement this as soon as possible.”
The major change in the schedule will be that school will now officially start at 7:55 AM instead of 8:00 AM. “We have always had 10 minutes of passing from 7:50 to 8:00 so this will be the biggest adjustment to the schedule. We will officially begin this on Tuesday, January 7th and will work with the students and parents during the first week as we adjust to the new schedule. The other major change is that the class periods will be 43 minutes instead of 45 minutes, but other than the bells ringing at different times, there should be minimal effect on the overall school day,” says Jaynes.
Students will receive a copy of the new bell schedule when they go to homeroom on the first day back from winter break on January 6th. “We always go to homeroom to pass out new schedules the first day of the semester so that will be a good time for them to look at the bell schedule,” says Jaynes.
“This will not affect the bus schedule as all of our buses arrive by 7:45 AM. Our main concern is students who drive to school and are transported by parents/guardians. If parents will continue to drop off their students 3 cars at a time at the drop-off point behind the school, and if our students who drive to school will leave home 5-7 minutes prior to their normal time, we should be fine,” says Jaynes.
A new copy of the bell schedule can be found on the school website at http://lchs.logan.kyschools.us/ under the “Latest News” link.