{"id":84328,"date":"2025-01-21T11:50:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-21T17:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=84328"},"modified":"2025-01-21T11:50:35","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T17:50:35","slug":"usd-489-reviews-proposed-middle-school-schedule-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=84328","title":{"rendered":"USD 489 reviews proposed middle school schedule change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By ALICIA FEYERHERM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The USD 489 Board of Education heard a presentation on schedule changes for Hays Middle School on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hays Middle School currently has four classes a day that are 75 minutes long, as well as a 35-minute Falcon Squad time and 45 minutes of Seminar. The new schedule would have five block periods and Squad time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hays Middle School Principal Tom Albers said this change was due to a decrease in state assessment scores for math and reading. Administrators, along with the Hays Middle School Scheduling Committee compared state assessment performance with schools of similar size as well as compared schedules and curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we couldn\u2019t find, is in any of those schools did they have a block schedule for math,\u201d Albers said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, every other school had math class every single day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step was to talk with the math and reading teachers to see if there was a way to rework the schedule so that math and reading could happen every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gifted Education Teacher Jerry Braun provided an overview of the new schedule. Instead of four classes a day, students would have five classes, allowing math and reading to be taught every day. The classes would be shorter with 70-minute classes instead of the previous 75-minute classes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom a teacher\u2019s standpoint, (70 minutes) was still long enough to do the kind of extended projects and have the work time that they wanted, but shaving a little bit off,\u201d Braun said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seminar will no longer be at the same time every day, but students will still have seminar as one of their classes. Besides math and reading, all other classes would continue to alternate on a block schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, students have a Reading class and a Language Arts class. Hays Middle School Teacher Melissa Treinen said that students may not even have the same Reading and Language Arts teacher, so it was hard to connect the two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the new schedule, the classes would be combined into one English Language Arts (ELA) class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a huge distinction between what was reading and what language arts,\u201d Braun said. \u201cIt really was blended in the curriculum, so they (the teachers) want to blend it back together into just an ELA class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Board Member Meagan Zampieri-Lillpopp asked about classes like orchestra and band that also benefit from having daily repetition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big deal,\u201d Zampieri-Lillpopp said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albers said they had discussions with the music staff, but ultimately, they had to focus on Math and Reading because those are the two competencies measured by the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The compromise was that music teachers can choose 15 to 20 students for their seminar class. This means that band, orchestra and choir students could have the opportunity to practice during that class in addition to the regularly scheduled music class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Board Member Jayme Goetz, a former high school math teacher, fully supported the new schedule. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so excited,\u201d Goetz said. \u201cThis is so great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goetz also noted that at Fort Hays, there has also been a shift to everyday instruction for math classes. Starting in the fall, Goetz will teach a College Algebra and an Elements of Statistics course that meets every day rather than only a couple of times a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only difference is we get more time,\u201d Goetz said. \u201cWe get to go at a pace that works for my students to ensure that they are learning the knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Board Member Curt Vajnar was also in support of the change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we\u2019ve got a problem, we got to fix it, and if we keep doing the same thing we\u2019ve been doing, we\u2019ve got to do better,\u201d Vajnar said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other action items from the meeting included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Accepted an audit report from Adams-Brown<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Accepted the purchase agreement for the sale of Lincoln Elementary for $850,000 to Michael D. Graham Investments, LLC.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Approval of district administrator contracts extensions one year<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Approval of KASB Recommended Board Policies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The next Board of Education meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. on February 3 in the Rockwell Administration Building. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By ALICIA FEYERHERM Tiger Media Network The USD 489 Board of Education heard a presentation on schedule changes for Hays Middle School on Monday.  Hays… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":61259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,11],"tags":[14480,2883,11297,14383],"class_list":["post-84328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-news","tag-alicia-feyerherm","tag-board-of-education","tag-usd-489","tag-usd-489-board-of-education"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/USD-489-Monthly-Meeting-Update.png?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84331,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84328\/revisions\/84331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}