BETHEL — A large group of Telstar Regional High School parents and students attended the regular meeting of the school board on Monday to express their concerns about changes to the high school academic schedule.

They voiced their concerns prior to a presentation by Telstar administrators on the changes in educational policy and the specific needs of their school that led to the adoption of the new schedule for the 2016-17 school year.

The new schedule will consist of six blocks of one hour each, with most core classes meeting daily. With the current schedule, consisting of four 80-minute blocks daily, the core classes meet on alternate days and students may enroll in eight courses. 

Parents said they would like to have more opportunities for open dialogue with the school board and administrators before far-reaching decisions are made.

“One of my concerns is the lack of communication between the administration, teachers and parents,” parent Amy Wheeler said. “The administration is coming up with changes. The parents are uninformed. We hear about it through rumor, and I think we need to do something to better communicate. There should be a meeting where things are brought out, such as scheduling.

“To make a well-informed decision, you need to hear everybody’s side of it,” she said.

Administrators have said they hope to address the school failure rate by increasing the instructional time spent on core classes.

Several Telstar students spoke in favor of keeping the current schedule of four alternating 80-minute blocks, with core classes meeting on alternate days, because they believe it provides more opportunities for students to take electives.

Some said a focus on additional core instructional time is misplaced.

“I believe this new schedule hurts students far and wide,” said junior Elijah Laird. “The issues that we have are from people not doing homework, from not having that connection. It’s not instructional time or how often we’re getting together.”

Telstar junior Michael LaForte said that even with the current eight blocks, he had been unable to fit band into his schedule for the past three years, and he is concerned that the new schedule provides even less flexibility, because it only allows for six different classes.

A parent of a Telstar senior, however, said that when his children had attended school in Maryland prior to moving to the Bethel area, they had done well with a schedule similar to the one being implemented at Telstar.

“They had the same schedule every day, and we liked that, because there was continuity,” he said. “They seemed to learn quicker.”

He said he has traveled and lived in many places over the course of his children’s school years and is impressed with the quality of education and the opportunities available at Telstar.

“I have never seen an administration as caring and as devoted,” he said.

“It’s just extraordinary, the time they put in, the way they just make things happen and take care of details,” he said. “They never make you feel like they’re doing you a favor; they make you feel like we’re all in this together.”

Telstar Principal Cheryl Lang and Dean Kristin Dacko gave a presentation to the school board about the new schedule and the reasoning behind it.

The standards-based grading system being implemented throughout the state means that instead of averaging grades of zero to 100 on tests and homework assignments, teachers will assess student learning based on their ability to demonstrate what they know and can do.

In addition, the administrators explained, traditional high school credits will be replaced by standards.

If a student fails a class, rather than having to repeat an entire semester course for credit, he or she will be able to work with teachers to address specific gaps in learning, then demonstrate the ability to meet the standards for the class.

The administrators addressed some of the concerns brought up by parents at the March school board meeting, explaining that the new schedule will have some flexibility.

There will be an option for double blocks two days a week, providing time for lab sciences or art classes that benefit from longer class times.

There is also an opportunity to reverse the final two blocks of the day, ensuring that students who leave early for athletics or other extracurricular activities will not always miss the same class.

A 40-minute “enrichment block” in the middle of the academic day provides a seventh scheduling opportunity for additional elective classes. All teachers will be available during that time to work with students who need extra help.

The six shorter academic blocks lend themselves well to the workshop model of teaching, they said.

In this model, teachers begin each class with a brief exercise designed to promote student engagement. They then teach a short lesson, providing a key concept or strategy and specific instructions.

The majority of the class is devoted to student-centered learning, in which the lesson is reinforced as students work as individuals or in small groups to collect data, address a problem or delve deeply into a specific task, while the teacher circulates throughout the classroom.

The class ends with a brief session during which students share what they have learned and the teacher recaps the day’s learning objectives.

Woodstock Director Marcel Polak said that for several years, the Education Committee has been looking at how to address the school failure rate, and the schedule change was developed in response to that concern.

“I also want to make it clear that although we are having a discussion about it, the board is not going to approve or disapprove the schedule,” he said. “That’s not our job. That’s the administration’s job.”

He said that everything he has read recently indicates that the new schedule incorporates the best approach to educating all Telstar students.

Bethel Director Roberta Taylor asked for a show of hands to demonstrate that the board supports “the administrators throughout the district and the work they are doing to help our students.”

All members of the school board indicated their support.

Taylor thanked the parents and students who attended and said it is important for the board to hear their concerns.

“The more we get together, the better,” she said. “It’s parents, it’s community, it’s teachers, it’s administration, and, of course, the No. 1 priority is students. And we all have to work together and not be at odds.”

The writer is a substitute teacher in the School Administrative District 44 Adult Education Department.