By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
Virgin Valley High School principal Mike Wilson gave a report last week about significant schedule changes being required at his school in the 2023-24 school year. The report was given at a special meeting of the Virgin Valley Community Education Advisory Board (VVCEAB) held on Friday afternoon, March 10. Right after that meeting, Wilson gave a similar report to the VVHS School Organizational Team (SOT).
Wilson began both presentations by reporting that VVHS had been found out of compliance with state regulation in allowing sophomores and juniors to schedule open periods during the school day as part of its “block schedule.”
“Those open periods for sophomores and juniors are in violation of Nevada state law and state administrative code,” Wilson said. “As such, for the next school year, there will not be open periods for those classes. There will only be open periods for seniors.”
Wilson emphasized that the mandate was coming from the Nevada Department of Education.
“We don’t want to be in violation of that because then we lose student funding, or we would have to reimburse student funding because we are not providing a full day of instruction,” Wilson said. “That is the reason for no open periods for freshman, sophomores and juniors.”
Wilson said that there had been no specific mandate from CCSD to do away with the block schedule. But in his research of the block, it had been determined that there were real problems with it.
“Last year our graduation rate dropped by 10 percent,” Wilson said. “We are the average of CCSD.
We are not above CCSD. Our graduation rate is the average. So we have to take a look at how we are going to increase math scores, and reading scores. We need to have that instruction every single day.”
Wilson gave an example of a student on the block schedule who attends a math class on a Tuesday. Then the student misses the Thursday class because of a sporting event he had to attend.
“That student would not receive any math instruction until the following Monday,” Wilson said. “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; there is no math instruction.”
Because of this, the school would be moving to a six or seven period day, Wilson said. “That way, they have math instruction every single day,” he said. “They have every class every day. We believe that will help our test scores because they have that daily, 57 minutes of time for each subject. That is more instruction over two days vs what they would get in the block.”
Wilson said that a fixed, seven-period schedule would also promote better safety for the kids by keeping the campus closed.
“There have been a couple of horrendous accidents that happened,” Wilson said. “You might remember a few years ago in Moapa Valley some students at lunch time rolled a vehicle. Also at Centennial High School they had the same problem where kids left during lunchtime and they rolled their vehicle with multiple fatalities. So having a closed campus for the majority of our students is actually a safer environment. It just makes sense.”
Wilson added that the thirty-minute lunch period would also change next year. Rather than taking place at the end of the school day, it would be a break in the middle of the daily schedule.
In addition, teacher prep time would be scheduled at the beginning of the school day. “That way we are able to establish a professional learning community and other training before school where right now we don’t have a lot of opportunities like that for teachers,” Wilson said.
A benefit to this is that teachers would end their contractual day right after classes each day. This would allow sports practices to start right away rather than kids and teachers waiting through the break period to start those practices.
CEAB Chairwoman Jodi Thornley asked if the new schedule would cause a loss to the school’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) offerings or other electives.
“Those will not be affected at all,” Wilson said. “As a matter of fact, we are looking at expanding classes and electives.”
Thornley also asked if the school would be able to keep offering dual credit college courses from CSN. Those classes have previously been offered to both juniors and seniors.
“The seniors will still be able to do that,” Wilson said.
“But they are the only ones, correct?” Thornley asked. “You won’t be able to do those as a junior.”
Wilson confirmed that juniors would not be able to leave campus to take live college level classes.
“But any other type of classes – like if they wanted to do online classes – then they could do that,” Wilson said. “They would just have to schedule it in the library or some other classroom for them to take those during their school day.”
Wilson added that the 7 period day would have to be approved by a majority of his teachers before it could be fully implemented. That is because it would require teachers to give up a small portion of their contractual prep time.
An election of teachers on this subject will be conducted by the teachers union in May. If the teachers vote against the idea, then the school would have to go to a six-period schedule, Wilson said. This would provide less options and would require larger class sizes than the proposed 7-period day, he said.
