Next year’s proposed bell schedule for fully blocked classes would give every student the ability to take eight courses and lunch, and it features “academic resource” time in the middle of the day for club meetings and tutoring, among other activities.
Each day will start with homeroom and be followed by two blocked classes. An hour-long period in the middle of the day will include lunch and Academic Resource Time for all students. The day will end with the final two blocked classes.
The Academic Resource Time, a new feature of the schedule, which will feature multiple options for students each day.
“Clubs and activities can meet during the middle of the day,” Principal Shaun Tomaszewski said. “We can have tutoring time, like we’re starting to get off the ground in the library, during that time. All sorts of different opportunities can happen during that flexible time.”
Other options for A.R.T. being considered include homework time, extra lab time, or freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior class events.
Tomaszewski said he saw the need for A.R.T. time when he looked back at his own high school years at Bethel Park.
“I’ve advocated strongly for this time to chill and disconnect because I took a bunch of AP classes in high school, and I went to Bethel, where we had 9 periods in a day. I didn’t take a lunch, so it was exhausting,” Tomaszewski said. “Being able to go to the library for half an hour or an hour and get caught up on classwork and stuff like that is also going to be an option.”
There will be time in the day for the A.R.T. in part because there will be a reduction in class time. Under this year’s schedule, most classes meet for 90 minutes total over two days, with the blocked classes meeting for 90 minutes every other day. Under next year’s full block schedule, all classes will meet every other day, and the blocks will be 80 minutes long.
The new hour-long midday period next year will be divided into two half-hour parts. Students will be able to use the Securly Flex app to sign up for lunch and different A.R.T. activities each day.
The Securly Flex app is new to Baldwin, but students recently used it to sign up for sessions for the upcoming college and career fair.
“If you remember that college and career fair event that we did last year, I scheduled all 1,400 kids across those three sessions in a Google sheet. It was a crazy pain, but this Securly Flex program does all that stuff automatically,” Tomaszewski said. “Through this software, club sponsors have rosters of students and can send them out a notification about a meeting at that time.”
Spanish teacher Becca Mackin is involved with many clubs, including the Spanish Club, Spanish National Honors Society, Global Minds, and Outreach Club. This new A.R.T time could be quite beneficial, she said.
“I think that having the ability to meet with club members during school hours is a huge plus, because we have a lot of students who, if they lack transportation resources, can’t stay after school for club meetings, ” Mackin said.
There are also issues for students involved in many clubs. Often, they have scheduling conflicts, with multiple clubs meeting after school on the same day, she said.
“I think the goal moving into this next year is to be better prepared on our end as sponsors of activities and to create a calendar that allows students to attend as many activities as possible,” Mackin said.
English teacher Leah Younkins also sees promise in the opportunity to have clubs meet during A.R.T. time.
“I sponsor Lit Guild and co-sponsor BHS Mini-THON, and I’m hoping with the opportunity to have club meetings in the middle of the school day more students will be able to participate, as transportation will not be an issue,” Younkins said.
There are opportunities to enhance teaching with the A.R.T. time, Mackin said.
“It can enhance our teaching because (language classes) are not able to touch on as much as we’d like, due to lack of time, as we have to get to everything we need in the curriculum,” Mackin said. “Having extra time to be able to utilize it for those types of activities that we don’t typically get to would be beneficial.”
