Block schedule, familiar to current seniors and juniors and staff who have been here for more than two years, may return to the campus for the next year if teachers of the Stockton Teachers Association pass a waiver.

Teresa Pham, senior, will not be affected by this decision but she supports block schedule more than the current traditional schedule.

“You always feel rushed and hurried,” she said about the current schedule. “You don’t have enough time to do stuff.”

The decision will be made next Thursday and may revert the schedule back to what it was two years ago through a waiver that will allow teachers to work the extra hours that block schedule adds to a school year.

Two meetings were held this month, one March 1 and another March 15, and it is still unsure whether it will come back.

“It’s very close,” John Steiner, Science Department chairperson, said, thinking about needing two-thirds of more than 100 teachers to agree on the waiver. Steiner helped in organizing the meetings and starting the move for block schedule along with math teacher Andrew Walter.

Steiner supports block schedule because he feels that he can “get more in depth on a subject matter” and there would be “more continuity” to his lessons whereas in a regular one-hour period, he would have to rush through everything.

The move towards block schedule began when Walter sent out a poll to teachers and of those who replied, 47 percent were interested in bringing block schedule back.

Steiner then invited Eliyahu Rabin, executive director of the Stockton Teachers Association, to speak at the first meeting regarding block schedule. Rabin went over all the procedures to pass the waiver that would allow block schedule and used the proposal from Cesar Chavez High School as an example.

Block schedule had students attending all their classes on Monday for one-hour periods while Tuesday through Friday were block days with three classes a day for two hours each.

Pham finds block schedule “more relaxing” because not everything is rushed and she is able to do things such as labs without the haste.

Kimyean Yoeun, senior, does not have a specific preference for either block schedule or the traditional.

“This schedule, it seems faster,” she said about the traditional schedule. “The work is faster. You don’t do that much work.”

But in the end, if Yoeun had to choose, she would choose block schedule. “There’s not much time to ask questions or get help (in this schedule),” she said.

Block schedule was voted out two years ago by teachers because it had them working extra and having extra prep hours in the year that went over their contract hours. The waiver to be passed will waive these hours but will also allow teachers to satisfy the 18 staff development hours.

“We can utilize the extra time we are working for common planning time,” Ward Downs, history and resource teacher, said about the staff development hours that will cover up the extra hours from block schedule. “That may be more appealing.”

Downs goes on to explain that with the staff development hours, teachers aren’t really giving up any time to work more with block schedule because they would have 18 hours to use for their own time to develop units and lesson plans. They would be required.

“We’d have to do 18 staff development hours to receive our contractual pay,” he said.

But the reasons behind not wanting block schedule are not just the extra hours. The World Languages Department, for example, would prefer having class every day so that students may learn the language better because they will be able to practice every day.

“Some teachers may complain about having a bad class and being stuck with them for two hours,” Steiner said.

Even though Pham supports block schedule, she does admit that it is a pain to have to “stay in a class too long with a teacher you don’t like.”

There were multiple proposals of a different type of block schedule that were brought up during the meeting March 1. One had the same block schedule as before but reducing the block days to two days a week instead of four and another had block days for the four days with physical education classes and world language classes taken together during one of those blocks everyday for one hour.

Marcus Sherman, a science teacher, did not care what type of block schedule would be brought back. He just wanted to be able to have some block days to teach. One great benefit that Sherman finds in block schedule is to be able to go through his labs without time forcing them to split it into multiple class periods or rushing through.

Yoeun agrees with this.

“We don’t have to rush through things,” she said. “Teachers have more time with you too.”

But, no matter what decision is made, not everybody will be happy.

The vote will be held next Thursday and Rabin warns: “When making this decision, be informed of all the possibilities and the consequences. In the end, it is in your hands whether a waiver changing the contract is approved or not approved.”



The vote for block schedule has moved from March 29 to April 24, the next staff meeting. Check back in late April for an update of the results.