The Nexus

Both Del Norte and Mt. Carmel have chosen to adopt a 5-by-3 schedule, new to Poway Unified, as a response to an increased need for adaptability in their schedules. Students will be able to take up to five classes in each of the three 12-week trimesters that will comprise the school year. This gives students up to 75 available credits per school year, 15 more than the 60 units available in a traditional six-period schedule, and five fewer than are available in the 4-by-4.

According to Mt. Carmel principal Dr. Tom McCoy, faculty and administrators voted for the new schedule based on its potential flexibility. McCoy said that the schedule had to be adjusted to better conform to the UC “a-g” requirements, which PUSD is planning to make the default or preferred curriculum for all high schools.

“If you’re not in a schedule that’s flexible, you choose between elective programs and taking an AP class,” he said. “We set out with a goal of trying to build a schedule that allowed flexibility.”

While McCoy said that the trimester system bore similarities to Westview’s schedule in flexibility, he also said that in the 5-by-3, classes are less rushed than in the 4-by-4.

In any block-schedule system like the 5-by-3 or the 4-by-4, however, students are able to take more classes than in a traditional schedule. This also means that the total number of classes students take every year, on average, increases. As this number goes up, budgets are spread thinner between classrooms. The school offers a greater number of classes than in the traditional schedule, but the district budgets money for its campuses based solely on student population.

In Mt. Carmel’s former scheduling system, that average was less than six classes per student. With a block-type schedule, that number increases. For Westview, that average is 7.2 classes.

According to Area Administrator Todd Cassen, a larger average-class number like Westview’s reduces the amount of the instructional-supply budget going to individual classrooms.

“It puts us at a disadvantage for the teaching supplies for [classes],” he said. “We’ve always averaged somewhere in the low sevens [of classes per student per year]. That’s a lot of classes that go through our expendable material.”

Science teacher Mike Kurth, a member of the administrative team that helped choose Westview’s schedule prior to the school’s opening, said that he ran the numbers for the 4-by-4 versus a traditional schedule. Initially, he said that he and the team believed that fewer students would take four classes per term than currently do.

“If everyone took three periods, we in fact would just break [even] with what other schools are doing,” Kurth said. “We had no idea that we would have the number of kids who are taking the four-by-four [schedule each year].”

However, Kurth said that Westview’s unique administrative design – splitting the support staff of the school into three hubs based on homerooms – has helped counteract some of the losses incurred by offering more classes without an increased budget from the district.

“I don’t think Westview is operating in the red,” Kurth said. “We’re still able to manage the gap and deliver.”

Both Kurth and Cassen said, however, that eliminating the effects of the higher average number of classes taken by Westview students would be difficult. On the district side, Cassen said that asking PUSD to take into account the extra classes being taken at Westview would be pointless in the face of the new budget. A massive change to the schedule is also unlikely to happen.

“The 4-by-4 for us is an untouchable,” Cassen said. “I’d rather have that flexibility [in the schedule], and figure out the money, than look at it like we’re getting shortchanged.”

For Kurth, the simplest way to bring down the 7.2 class average would be to cap the number of classes on campus.

“If Westview said seven [classes] was the max, you could recoup thousands of dollars,” he said.

But Kurth said that he was unsure whether this cap could outweigh its negative effects on the schedule’s flexibility.

At Mt. Carmel, McCoy said that budget discussions came up in the debate over how to adjust Mt. Carmel’s schedule, but were not a major decision-making factor. As for how the new schedule will affect individual supply budgets in the coming year, McCoy said that initial calculations have shown no change.

“Using our current numbers, we’ve run ample schedules,” he said. “As long as students continue to opt into more than the minimum number of classes, we don’t see losing any teachers or teacher resources as a result of the changes.”