On April 12th our building leadership team met with a parent advisory group and the student council presidency to establish a bell schedule for the coming year. During that meeting, a wise young lady suggested that our community may not understand why we are constantly talking about adjusting bell schedules. I was charged to attempt to explain this to as many as desire to know.
Before I begin, all of us must understand that the state of Idaho has two laws that directly impact high school schedules. First, for a high school to grant a student credit for any semester class they must show that the class met for at least 60 hours. Second, at the end of the year, the school must show that they have met for a total of at least 990 hours. With these two requirements understood, I will now attempt to explain where we are at today.
During COVID the Cassia School District adopted a four-day school week. It was understood when this occurred that we were doing our best to provide our children with as much instruction and contact as we possibly could with the given parameters at the time. Each of the high schools in the district implemented a schedule that they felt best met the needs of their students. Declo High School has ardently requested that we remain on a block schedule. (A day/B day) Our administration and staff believed that such a schedule provided our students with the greatest access to elective courses. From the beginning, we knew that by doing so we would not meet either of the above-identified state laws. The Cassia district applied for a waiver from the state on our behalf, and they have done so each year since COVID. Under our current schedule, our students have continued to be successful and we are very proud of them.
This legislative session House Bill 521 was passed. This Bill potentially will provide significant financial benefits to our district. These funds require that we no longer apply for a waiver. Therefore, we must meet the 60-credit hour requirement along with the cumulative 990-hour requirement.
Cassia County has been very blessed to have a Regional Technical Center. Five high schools send students to the TEC Center. For this reason, the block schedule was adopted over 20 years ago. With the advent of the four-day school week, each high school has a different schedule making this difficult for all.
Our staff has been tasked to create a schedule that meets the state requirements and ensures access to the TEC Center. As we work through this, I believe our parents and students must understand that we are attending school 17 fewer days per semester. We added 35 minutes to our school day to try and recoup some of this lost time. However, if my math is correct, we are still approximately seven hours less per class, per semester. When compared to our schedule pre-COVID.
In our current schedule, we were 7.5 hours short of 60 hours on A-day and 4.5 hours short on B-day first semester, or 5 A-days and 3 B-days short. The second semester is very similar. Solutions may include such things as moving away from the block schedule, lessening graduation requirements, adding days to the schedule, etc.
I appreciate our parents and the Declo community supporting our students and school. I hope you can continue to support us as we adjust our schedule to meet the given requirements. If you still have questions, I would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to try and better explain.
Thank you,
Roland Bott, Principal
Declo High School