In closed session at the Dec. 19 meeting, Pruitt consulted with the council before announcing his decision to hire Gloyd to replace Taylor Sparks, who is retiring as athletic director for Trigg County schools after 14 years. Sparks’ retirement will be effective Dec. 25.
Pruitt told The Cadiz Record that it was necessary to replace Sparks as soon as possible since there were games scheduled during the Christmas break. He said that Gloyd had offered to serve as the interim director and that he did not interview anyone else for the position because no one else had made the request and the time factor was critical. Pruitt said Gloyd would finish out the school year as interim athletic director and that the school would advertise for the position after that. Candidates would be interviewed during the summer, Pruitt said.
The council spent the majority of its meeting, though, discussing the finding of the scheduling committee, whose members have been researching possible alternate schedules for next year. The council is hoping to adopt a schedule that would improve scores on the annual Commonwealth Accountability Testing System. Charles Lee, Simone Parker and Lori Wooton briefed the council on what they had learned so far.
Lee told the council that he had taught on every type of schedule imaginable during his teaching career and that the high school’s current schedule is “a mess.” The current schedule is known as “modified block.” Students take five classes. The first two periods meet for about 90 minutes and the other three meet for close to an hour. The 90-minute classes end in December and are replaced by two new classes when the spring semester begins.
“The five-period day is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen, to honest with you,” Lee said.
Lee said that he taught under what is known as the “four-by-four” schedule in Christian County, and that it was also a terrible system. Under the four-by-four schedule, students would take four classes, approximately 90 minutes long, during the fall semester and another set of classes in the spring. He said this was a bad schedule because there are certain subjects that students should be exposed to throughout the year, namely math and classes. If someone takes a math class in the fall, they might not take any kind of math class during the spring. By the time April arrives and it’s time to take the accountability test, that student might forget most of what he or she learned.
Lee said that the scheduling committee is looking at two possible schedules, which lee said are at “opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of stress.” They are the seven-period day and what is known as the “A/B block schedule.” Under the A/B block schedule, students would take eight classes. Those classes would last throughout the school year and would last approximately 90 minutes. Students would attend one set of four classes every other day.
Lee discussed some of the pros and cons of both schedules. He said that the seven-period day had the advantage of classes that would meet every day, which might help with things such as math concepts. Students would also get year-round exposure to all the classes. Another advantage of the schedule is that longer classes might be incompatible with the attention spans of most students.
On the negative side, Lee said that the seven-period day was much more stressful than A/B block. Shorter class periods would likely result in more homework for students, and they would have to have by the next day. He said that teachers also might have a hard time cramming all their instruction time into the shorter periods.
For the rest of this story, read this week's Cadiz Record.
