Updated Bell Schedule Proposal

Oak Ridge High School

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Oak Ridge High School

WHY?

Too many Oak Ridge students are anxious, depressed, and thinking about suicide.

• 28% of our 9th graders and 33% of 11^th graders reported feeling chronic sadness or hopelessness in the past 12 months.

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• 14% of 9^th graders and 17% of 11^th graders reported seriously considering suicide. Multiple suicide attempts are made yearly.

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WHY?

Too many Oak Ridge students are stressed all the time, and too few students feel connected to adults on campus.

• 75% of respondents reported feeling stressed out most of the time

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• At my school there is a teacher or adult who cares about me. 44% Say Not True/Little True

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• These numbers have been steadily increasing

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Survey Feedback

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Proposed Changes

Based on Survey Feedback

• Collaboration Back on Monday
• Team will explore ways to get 3:39 closer to 3:30. Will bring recommendations back to faculty for a vote.

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Timeline

Student Schedule Requests finalized December 11th

Closer to 3:30 doesn’t affect student schedule requests but the tutorial and late start do.

Time for This Vote: Didn’t think there would be time

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Proposed Schedule

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Discussion

Does this schedule live up to our Motto?

• Will discuss question in department then share out with the whole group

Updated Schedule Proposal

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Discussion

Why Discuss:

• What do you appreciate about this schedule and what are your concerns from a department perspective?
• Share Out to Whole Faculty

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Meet in Departments

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Proposed Schedule

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The History of Our Journey

• The analysis and findings by Challenge Success were validated by our internal research and data.
• Challenge Success analysis of our school suggested that our early first period (7:30 start time) and lack of a tutorial period were key detractors to our students’ well-being.

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The History of Our Journey

• We created a team of faculty and administrators to design a new bell schedule with a later start and tutorial period
• For the last 1.5 years members of this team have been:
• Visiting Other Schools, Examining Countless Bell Schedules, Researching the Topic, Surveying the Faculty, Building Schedules

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Hypothetical Schedule w/ 8:30 Start Time

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Insert Schedule Here

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Other changes to the schedule

Move collaboration to Wednesday (Student’s don’t need a short day on Monday after the weekend. They could use the extra time later in the week.)

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Other changes to the schedule

Collaboration time is shorter, collaboration-day class time is longer, break and lunch are both 5 minutes shorter and instructional minutes for the whole year are trimmed. All of this is help make the dismissal time on block days as early as practical.

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Optimal Collaboration Time?

Other changes to the schedule

1st period and block periods are shorter to make time for tutorial/advisory and limit dismissal times.

Lunch is earlier and nutrition break is now in the afternoon to prevent lunch from being pushed too late.

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Optimal Class Length?

Proposed Schedule

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Late Start with Tutorial

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Proposed Schedule

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Late Start with Tutorial

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Start Time and Student Well-Being

A significant body of research suggests that high school students are sleep deprived.

Research suggests that high school students need between 8-10 hours a sleep a night.

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Research (and our own eyes) say that students aren’t sleeping enough

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Start Time and Student Well-Being

Sleep deprivation has been associated with:

• Worse academic performance
• Worse mental health--including depression and suicidal ideation
• Also substance abuse, poor attendance, tardiness, automobile accidents and host of other issues and problems.

There are many factors that affect how much sleep our students get, but the only significant factor under our control is school start time.

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Sleep deprivation is harmful to students

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Start Time and Student Well-Being

Research on later high school start times has shown that students DO get more sleep with later start times, and may show improved academic performance and mental health.

ORHS students without a first period report getting more sleep than students with a first period. ORHS students who sleep more report lower stress.

You can read some of this research on the information sheet that we have sent out.

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Evidence suggests that later school start times help

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Start Time and Student Well-Being

We asked if you supported later start times

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Start Time and Student Well-Being

If all we did was push 1st from 7:25 to 8:30 our dismissal time on block days would be 3:55.

We looked hard for options to reduce this impact but every choice requires a trade off--especially in light of state requirements for instructional minutes.

In the end, through a combination of small changes to the schedule we were able to bring that dismissal time back down to 3:39 on block days.

Later start times mean later dismissal times

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Start Time and Student Well-Being

Other schools have made this same change for these same reasons. Schools in Davis, San Diego, Palo Alto, Fremont, Menlo-Atherton, Vallejo, Seattle, and others have delayed their start times.

Based on the same research that led us to consider later start times, the state has passed legislation requiring high schools to start no earlier than 8:30AM by 2022.

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8:30AM is the law starting in 2022

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Proposed Schedule

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Late Start with Tutorial

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Why Implement Tutorials?

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• Personalization of learning
• Targeted intervention becomes mandatory
• Unlock time for students and faculty

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Optimal Length and Frequency for Tutorials

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• How do we meet the needs of our students?
• What is working for other schools?
• What does the research say?

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Optimal Length and Frequency for Tutorials

Research

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• Some researchers have suggested that interventions must be frequent to be effective for secondary students (Vaughn & Fletcher, 2012)
• Research shows that the typical intervention is 20-40 minutes, 4-5 times per week. (Gersten et al., 2009)

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Choices for Students

• Assigned Intervention – Struggling students are identified and assigned to classrooms with peer tutors
• Study Hall – Place for students to work
• Academic Intervention/Make-up – Assessment make-ups and additional teacher help

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Ensuring Successful Implementation

Cap the number of students in classrooms

• Study Halls (30-32 students)
• Academic Intervention (10-14 students)

Teachers will set availability, for example:

Mon - Subject A

Thurs - Subject B

Tues/Fri - Study Hall

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Ensuring Successful Implementation

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FlexiSched - Electronic Tracking of Students

• Student web interface to select daily tutorials
• Web based attendance for teachers

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Phillip Leonhardt

Vista Del Lago Math Teacher

• Vista’s Journey with their Tutorial
• How does the faculty like Tutorial?
• How does the faculty like FlexiSched?

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Vista Del Lago High School

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Questions

Email to Us or Discuss in Dep’t Meetings

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Ensuring Successful Implementation

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• The basic framework of the Tutorial has been created.
• But we need a committee to come together to finish designing and working out the logistics of the tutorial

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