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Photo Credit: Matthew Price
According to an Aiken County school board presentation October 26th, Aiken County will be considering the possibility of implementing a block schedule for the 2021 fall semester and subsequent school year. According to the presentation, block scheduling would have students take four classes per semester, as opposed to the traditional “skinny schedule” model of seven yearlong classes that students attend each day. During this four by four block scheduling, students would attend each class for upwards of 90 minutes, amounting to about one and a half hours.
The Aiken County school board outlined a list of possible concerns consistent with block scheduling. Chiefly, the possibility of offering less AP classes for the fall semester. This is largely due to the time in which AP exams are administered in the spring, possibility leaving fall semester AP students to review AP exam material on their own. Also of note is that it is expected that elective classes such as art, chorus, and band may suffer due to spaced out class time. Inversely, the school board says block scheduling has the potential to replicate the college experience, reduce student stress, and “align better with dual enrollment”
According to a district wide online survey used to measure information about this possible block schedule, “Most teachers would teach three blocks each semester and have a maximum of 90 students per semester, although we always try to keep class size below 30.” For additional information, the Aiken County school board will be meeting to discuss this topic again on December 8th.
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