SIMI VALLEY : High School Weighs Longer, Fewer Classes

Royal High School teachers and administrators are scheduled to decide by Feb. 1 whether to change class schedules so that students would spend 90 to 120 minutes in three or four classes a day instead of taking six 50-minute periods.

At an all-day conference, teachers learned about alternative scheduling at four area high schools. Educators from Simi Valley’s Royal High School then split up to discuss the issue. A survey of the faculty will be taken in coming weeks, Principal Mike McConahey said.

School officials seek to gauge faculty interest in proceeding with the proposal by this fall or the fall of 1995, McConahey said. If teachers want to go ahead, the community will be consulted through public meetings, he said.

“My motivation is to find anything we can do to improve the learning environment,” McConahey said.

Teachers from Hueneme, Newbury Park, Oak Park and Agoura high schools told Friday’s gathering that the revised schedules have forced teachers to become more creative in the classroom.

Taking fewer classes for longer periods during the day allows students to focus on fewer classes at a time. Classroom discussion or laboratory work can go into greater depth with more time in one sitting, teachers said.

Teaching five or six 50-minute periods each day does not allow teachers to get to know students like the longer classes do, said Rob Hall, a social studies teacher at Oak Park.

“That 50 minutes goes just like that,” Hall said, snapping his fingers. “You tend to deal with the same four or five kids every day. It’s the kid who needs the most help or the kid who’s most boisterous.”