This fall, Forest Lake High School will make its biggest schedule change in a dozen years, altering its four-period block system in a move largely driven by concerns the schedule might hamper students' performance on No Child Left Behind assessments.
The high school joins a move away from the block schedule, which runs on 85-minute classes and condenses yearlong courses into a semester, in favor of one that teaches core subjects 50 minutes a day for the entire school year.
The North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale and Stillwater districts also abandoned a block schedule in the past three years.
The new system eliminates the learning gaps that might have students taking the MCA-II test -- the state's No Child Left Behind assessment -- a full year after their last math class.
"If we take kids out for half a year and expect them to do well on state exams, we're fooling ourselves," Principal Steve Massey said.
While the school reached No Child Left Behind goals in all areas except reading for special education students last year, Massey said he was also concerned with long breaks before college entrance exams and Advanced Placement tests.
Its solution, approved 7-0 by the school board on Thursday night, is actually a hybrid of the block schedule and a traditional slate with seven 50-minute periods.
Students will take three 50-minute semester-long classes and a pair of 90-minute blocks that switch every quarter, meaning students will take core classes such as math and English for two semesters instead of one.