CISD back to eight-period class schedule

The Clarendon Independent School District will experience many changes this upcoming school year as the A/B block schedule switches to a traditional eight period day.

This means that students will have the same classes everyday instead of every other day, and there will be a six week grading period instead of nine.

“Having a shorter grading period will allow students who fall behind to catch up easier,” Clarendon High School Principal Larry Jeffers said.

According to Jeffers, the schedule change was a direct result of the failure rate and the TAKS scores.
“We feel that daily contact instead of every other day contact with teachers will help improve students’ grades,” Jeffers said.

It is a common belief of many teachers that in the A/B schedule, many students tend to procrastinate school work and never get it completed. An eight period day will help students learn better work ethics and time management.

If high school students continue to put off school assignments, then they will have to attend a mandatory detention/tutorial called Thursday Night Live, which is a new ZAP (Zeros Aren’t Permitted) policy that will be in effect this year. Students will not be able to participate in any extracurricular activities until they have all their assignments completed.

Computer teachnology teacher Susan Taylor is only one of the teachers at Clarendon High who is expecting the new ZAP policy to show some results.

“I’m hoping that Thursday Night Live will work out because some students get to a point where lunch detention doesn’t bother them anymore, but maybe if they have to come in after school on Thursday, it would actually make them want to get their work done. I’m anxious to see how it turns out,” said Taylor. “I think that it’s sad that as high school students there has to be an outside motivation instead of an intrinsic one.”

Extracurricular absences will also be affected by the schedule change. Instead of allowing students to miss ten A days and ten B days for a total of twenty absences, they will only be permitted ten this year.

Some students aren’t too excited about the schedule change, such as High School Student Council President Brandi Mays.

“I think that this year is going to be hectic and a really big adjustment for us because we’ve been so use to A days and B days for several years,” Mays said.

Even teachers are going to have a hard time switching back to eight period days.
“For my teaching, the schedule change is going to be hard because in my classes, by the time students log in and log off, 30 to 40 minutes isn’t long enough to get any work done,” Taylor said.

To the relief of many high school students, open campus lunch will still be allowed, except reduced to 44 minutes instead of a full hour.

“The only bad thing about the schedule change is that we’ll have to carry so many books around, and the shortened lunch will definitely make a lot of students upset,” said Mays.