High School Students on a Schedule for Success : Education: In extending class time, Newbury Park has eased crowded classrooms and improved grades.

Teacher Gale Hutchins surveyed her freshman science students at Newbury Park High School on Wednesday and pointed out one of the most visible benefits of a restructuring plan undertaken this school year.

Fewer than half of the 30 seats were full.

“I would normally have 28 or 30 students in a freshman basic physical science class,” Hutchins said.

The restructuring at the 1,500-student school, similar to an overhaul at Hueneme High School three years ago, did away with the six-period-a-day class schedule typical at most high schools.

Instead, students take three longer classes of 95 minutes each. The longer courses run for half the school year, and then students take three different classes in the second semester.

With the switch, all teachers now conduct six classes a year instead of five. Under the old system, teachers used to have an hour free each day to prepare for their five classes.

The changes have resulted in smaller class sizes. And with only three classes per semester, students do not have to scatter their attention in several different directions, Principal Charles Eklund said.

“We wanted to allow students to focus on three classes at a time, instead of six,” Eklund said.

Not only does Hutchins have fewer students in the beginning science class, the 95-minute format gives her more uninterrupted time to convey lessons.

“It’s wonderful, because I have more time to do labs and demonstrations,” Hutchins said.

Entering the fourth year of a similar experiment at Hueneme High, faculty members there find that the longer class periods give them more time to get to know students, Assistant Principal Jim Miller said.

And both staff and students report less stress from juggling fewer classes per day, Miller said.

“We now have more students getting A’s, Bs and Cs, and fewer students getting Ds and Fs,” Miller said.

Oak Park High School also is phasing in longer class periods, along with other reforms, beginning this year with ninth-graders and adding a grade level each year until the whole school is changed over.

Longer and fewer classes for high schoolers are among a slew of reforms recommended in a state report issued in 1991. But the Thousand Oaks school board did not mandate the changes at Newbury Park.

Teachers, administrators and parents at the school developed their own plan over two years, because they knew best what was likely to work, said Fred Van Leuven, director of secondary education at the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

“Each school has its own culture,” Van Leuven said.

Students say they like the changes, although it has required some adjustment.

“If you miss one day, it’s like missing two,” Melissa Thornhill, 15, said of the intensive studies. “It’s raising attendance.”

Preliminary figures indicate that Melissa may be right. The percentage of students absent during the first month of this year fell to 2.2%, compared to 2.8% last year, officials said.

Junior Elise Cox said it seems as if she has more homework this year under the new schedule, “but I’m learning to live with it,” she said.

Some teachers seem to be having a harder time adjusting, Elise added. Some still are spending the bulk of class time lecturing, she said.

“Ninety-five minutes of lecture is a little bit much,” Elise said.

The longer class periods have forced most teachers to vary their methods in class, but not all have made the transition, Eklund said.

“Obviously, 95 minutes of lecture is not going to work,” the principal said. “You’re going to lose some students. But I think for some teachers, it’s hard to change their style.”

Teacher Paul Coffman said the new system fits perfectly with his preferred teaching methods of small group discussion and oral quizzing meant to spark independent thinking among students.

Coffman said he could offer no empirical evidence that the new system is helping students to absorb information better.

But, he added, “Fewer students and more time to think, I think it’s axiomatic.”

Although he and other teachers wind up conducting one more class per year under the restructuring, Coffman said he is sold.

“At the beginning, I was undecided,” Coffman said. “Then I became an advocate.”