ANAHEIM : Canyon High School Alters Class Schedule

Canyon High School students leaving for the summer are bidding farewell to more than their teachers and classmates.

Beginning this fall, the daily schedule of six 55-minute class periods will be out. Instead, the school’s 1,700 students will attend three 100-minute sessions, with subjects alternating every other day, Principal Ralph Jameson said.

“We have spent over a year studying and preparing for what we see as a great improvement in our program,” Jameson told the Orange Unified School District’s board last week.

Teachers, 89% of whom voted for the new “block schedule,” will develop longer classes that encourage students to participate rather than simply listen to lectures, Jameson said.

At least six schools in the county already use the new schedule, Jameson said.

Students will still spend the same amount of time each day in school, he said. As a plus, the new schedule will include a daily half-hour tutorial period.

The new program reflects an education trend that has been gaining support for five or six years, Assistant Supt. Neil J. McKinnon said. “It is picking up momentum,” he said of the concept. “I’ve heard that up to 25% of Orange County schools might [eventually] be on it.”

Resistance to the concept has come largely from a general reluctance to change, McKinnon said. Canyon High teachers and staff have researched the subject for two years, however, and “all of the teachers have had their questions answered,” he said.

Teachers in the other three high schools in the district--Orange, El Modena and Villa Park--voted the idea down this year, McKinnon said.

David Reger, a Canyon High mathematics teacher and president of the teachers union, said some teachers are concerned that the longer classes will not suit their teaching styles or subject matter.