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"Waianae to switch to block schedule"
Originally published in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, February 24, 2003
This article can also be found here, on the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's website.

As of next school year, Waianae High School's class schedule will change. On Aug. 15 the Board of Education approved a contract for an alliance between WHS, Johns Hopkins University and its reform model, Talent Development High School. One of the major outcomes of the reform model is a new block schedule. According to registrar Russ Woolsey, the six-period schedule that WHS has now -- four alternating periods from Mondays through Wednesdays, and double periods on Thursdays and Fridays -- is a different form of block scheduling.

"Block scheduling is not brand new," Woolsey said. "What's new to us is the four-by-four schedule."

In the four-by-four block schedule, each semester will consist of four classes, or "blocks," for a total of eight blocks a school year. This way, students can earn up to eight credits, as opposed to the existing six-credit system.

Although the transition to a block schedule is definite, the actual bell schedule still is not. A scheduling committee was formed, and since September the committee has been meeting to come up with a proposal for a bell schedule.

"There are lots of ways to set a schedule up, so we looked at ... block schedules at other schools -- some of them in Hawaii, some of them on the mainland -- and we've been trying to figure out what would be best for our school," said English teacher and committee chairman David Gold.

As of press time, the proposed bell schedule includes 85 minutes for each of the four classes and a 50-minute lunch period between second and third period. For Wednesdays, school will not start until 8:50 a.m. Gold points out, though, that aspects of the proposed schedule are subject to change, as it is yet to be reviewed by administration and the School/Community-Based Management team.

Both Woolsey and Gold said that being able to focus on four classes a day, instead of six, is an advantage of the new schedule.

"Two less notebooks, two less teachers," Gold said.

In addition to block scheduling, the reform model will separate the student body into five different "academies." The freshman academy will concentrate ninth-graders on one part of campus and guide them in their transition from intermediate to high school.

Four career academies -- Health and Human Services, Natural Resources, Arts and Communications, and Business and Industrial Engineering Technology -- will prepare upperclassmen for post-secondary education and the workplace.

Out of the five academies, only the freshman academy will be in full effect next school year. The others are still being developed and will not be completely in effect until the 2004-2005 school year.

The reform model will also establish a Twilight School program, held after school hours. According to the TDHS brochure, the program will provide students with attendance or discipline problems the opportunity to learn in a "positive, inviting learning environment." Separate scheduling for these students will allow staff to provide individual attention, and, like the freshman academy, it will assist students with the transition to high school.

Woolsey summed up the reform when he spoke about a term he learned at a workshop: "wall-to-wall reform."

"If you're going to change things, you have to change all of the interrelated pieces so that you can come up with the success that you want to come up with," Woolsey said.