Most Lexington high schools have done block scheduling for many years. In fact, HC was the last public high school in the city to use a traditional bell schedule with six daily classes. However, this year that has changed. HC now follows a very similar schedule to other high schools like Paul Laurence Dunbar and Tates Creek, known as a block schedule. The reason for this change primarily lies in the fact that transferring to and from HC was overly complicated with the old schedule, and bringing HC in line with the rest of the district alleviated those problems. For this reason, SBDM (the SIght-Based Decision-Making Council) has elected to change the scheduling system to match the rest of the district.
The block scheduling system replaces six daily classes with four, but via the A-day B-day system (known at HC as blue and gold) eight classes can be taken in total. In theory, this is a benefit for students. The school day remains the same length, but students can take more elective classes. This allows students to pursue whatever classes they want without as many scheduling limitations.
In practice, however, there are a variety of problems with this system. No matter how the schedule is divided up, and no matter how many different “days” are added to these block systems, there is no way to divine more time out of a school schedule so rigid in its overall length. This relationship is known in game theory, the mathematical study of strategic interactions, as a zero-sum game. When something goes up, another must come down, with no exceptions. Gain by one side is always followed by an exactly equal loss by another.
In this case, class time is taking a heavy hit under the new system. While each class is now one hour and thirty minutes compared to the previous hour, HC students now only have each class once every two days. This means that, per day, each class now has 25% less time (45 minutes) to teach the exact same material. In other words, a 25% increase in the number of classes has caused a 25% reduction of class time, a textbook zero-sum game.
The question in this instance is whether or not HC students do, or should, believe this game to be worth playing. When considering this question, we must ask what type of student benefits from these changes. According to 2023 ROIS data, during that year 819 of 1994 HC students (41%) failed at least one class. Therefore, even when HC still used a traditional schedule many students were struggling with their classes. For these students, block scheduling is nothing less than a nightmare. Students that were struggling with six classes now have eight, and less class time in all of them. For this group, both the gain and loss of the zero-sum game are negatives, because having more classes is a detriment as well. How can struggling students be expected to recover when the new system insists on making their lives harder?
This would suggest that we are collectively playing this game for the benefit of HC’s high-achieving students, a group exemplified by the Liberal Arts Academy. There are, however, a number of problems with this. First, even if block scheduling does grant some great benefit to high-achieving students, we must ask why HC is abandoning its struggling population to let a few students take more AP classes. Consider that there are only 499 students with a gifted designation at HC, and among them only 236 Academy students out of HC’s current enrollment of 1,913. Do we really believe it wise to make school far more difficult for nearly half the population in order to help a quarter? Second, any purported benefit that block scheduling grants to high-achieving students is at best a half truth. At the surface level, having more classes allows high-achieving students to take more high-level classes, which they surely will have no trouble passing, given their proficiency. However, proficiency cannot be equated to perfection even if it may seem so from the outside. According to that very same ROIS data, in 2023 9.4% of Academy students failed a class. While that number is much lower than that of the general HC student body, the reality remains that even the most distinguished students are still human, and the very impacts of block scheduling that will hurt our struggling students will also make themselves known to our high-level students. Even if a student was taking, and passing, six AP classes, adding two more will surely be a large burden. Further, the 25% reduction of class time will have a massive impact on our high-achieving students just as it will on those who struggle. In fact, there may be an even greater problem because many high-level classes, especially math, were already forced to teach lengthy curriculums in a limited amount of time. With the class time reduction of block scheduling, it will likely be even more difficult for these teachers to effectively help their students. To avoid the problem of having too many advanced classes, high-level students could use the new extra classes for easier electives (keeping the number of high-level classes the same). However, if the solution to this problem, for a high-level student, is taking easy classes so as to in effect take six again, then why change anything when we had six classes before with more class time?
Taking eight high-level classes is simply not achievable for the majority of students, even those in the Academy. For example, Academy juniors are already required to take AP Physics, AP US History, a high-level math course, AP English Language, and a high-level world language course. Should two more APs be added to that roster? If not, then the answer to the question I posed earlier is clear. The zero-sum game benefits only one group: the very top students who can pass seven or eight AP or dual credit classes. For everyone else, from Academy students satisfied with their current, already-rigorous course load all the way down to students struggling to pass six classes, the block schedule system brings virtually no benefit at all and serious detriments.
Let us consider what this new system looks like: the vast majority of HC students sacrificing their grades and mental health so a few of the very highest-level students can pad their college résumés. Under block scheduling, we are playing not only a zero-sum game but one in which all but a select few participants lose. Put simply, the theory of block scheduling is to better allow students to take the classes they want, but in reality makes existing classes more difficult without benefitting very many students even among high-achievers. This says nothing of the negative impacts it will have on HC students who are already struggling. Quite frankly, block scheduling is not a good idea for the majority of HC students and HC should at least consider returning to its old schedule.
