Guilford extends class times

By Rachael Scarborough King
June 12, 2008

GUILFORD — High school classes will be extended by about 12 minutes this fall, and lunch time will be reduced.

The new schedule came about after months of meetings and two public forums this school year, Principal Rick Misenti said.

The old schedule included eight 45-minute class periods every day. There were four lunch waves, and since lunch was scheduled into the day as a class, students taking certain classes did not have time set aside for lunch.

Under the new system, students will still have eight class slots, but will only attend six classes each day. The schedule will rotate every day and there will be three 30-minute lunch periods, meaning that all students will have lunch.

“We didn’t really overhaul the schedule,” Misenti said. “We’re putting kids in classes for longer periods of time with great teachers, and that’s a good thing.”

In the past, the school had looked at switching to block scheduling, where students would have four, 90-minute classes every day. Misenti, who is finishing his first year as principal, said the consensus he heard from teachers and students was that they would prefer longer classes, but thought that 90 minutes was too long.

Each class will now be about 57 minutes long.

Superintendent of Schools Thomas Forcella said the new schedule will allow for more instructional time, since less of the class will be taken up with settling down in the beginning and getting ready to leave at the end.

“The feeling was that the ideal length of time for a class would be about an hour,” Forcella said. “The 90-minute class they felt for some students, you know, was too long.

“I think it’ll create a better learning environment at the school,” Forcella said.

A copy of the new schedule is posted on the high school’s Web site at http://www.guilford.k12.ct.us/~ghs/.