Schools

Updated: North Canton School Officials Discuss Eliminating One Period from Hoover High Schedules

Hoover High School could go from eight to seven periods a day to save the district money

North Canton City School officials will continue talking about eliminating one period from students’ school days, but the switch won’t happen for awhile.

Superintendent Michael Gallina said after a Board of Education work session Friday morning that the change won’t take place for the 2011-2012 school year. But North Canton Board of Education members and school administrators will discuss the impact on when the board meets May 25.

And the district likely will have two board meetings in June.

Their idea is to take an eight-period Hoover High school day and turn it into a seven-period school day without putting undue hardship on students. One parent at the meeting said some students worry that extracurriculars such as band and choir may be too much to handle if they have one fewer period each day, and that's the class they're likely to drop.

School officials said the switch from an eight- to a seven-period school day will cut costs. The gist? Fewer classes, fewer teachers. The district is struggling with lack of state money — school officials expect a 20 percent reduction in state dollars, which equals $3.2 million over the next two years.

That doesn’t mean the district will lay off teachers, but officials said when one person retires, that position will be filled only if necessary.

Realigning positions within the district likely won’t pay off within the first year of the transition to seven-period school days, but in following years, when a significant number of retirements likely will come.

Todd Henne, associate principal at , led much of the discussion Friday morning, mentioning several options the district could take to create a seven-period school day. One of those options is , which would allow the high school students to double up on classes by scheduling two where one normally would be. The students would be in one class one day and the other class the next.

“Of course that gets dangerous, because we’re going to have kids here at Hoover trying to take 11 or 12 classes,” Henne said.

School officials talked about how Hoover has the longest school day in the area, but they made clear they did not want to shorten the length of the day but cut out one period and keep the same curriculum.

Henne said students filled out schedules to see how the seven-period day might work out, and “no one program took an absolute beating.” In fact, only 50 or so students had major scheduling conflicts. (Hoover’s student population is about 1,750.)

Hoover High students have late arrival and early dismissal options, but District Treasurer Todd Tolson and Board Member Nancy Marion said they were concerned about those students who don’t have those options. When do they make up work if they also have no study halls?

“There’s always a way,” Henne said. “Our teachers find a way to get it done.”

The Board of Education took no action at its meeting Friday.


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