In a presentation to the Elkhorn Area School District Board of Education April 13, staff, students and administration from Elkhorn Area High School presented its plant to shift away from semesters and move towards a trimester setup at the high school in the future.
Staff said the school formed a committee of 18 teachers tasked with analyzing the school’s current schedule along with schedules observed while seen on visits at other schools and eventually opted to further investigate trimesters and ultimately switch to trimesters.
With switching to trimesters, the school year would be split into three 12-week blocks, with each day having five periods of about 70 minutes. Semester classes would meet for one trimester, while what would typically be yearlong classes would meet for two.
Staff said at the meeting some of the benefits of trimesters include more time in class, resulting in a greater depth of teaching and learning, less classes for students and teachers to prepare for on a daily basis, less time lost passing between classes, a reduction of monotony for students and immediate remediation for students in need.
Additionally, under the new structure, staff said students would have more instructional minutes prior to AP and ACT tests and AP classes would finish prior to testing, avoiding wasted time at the end of the year.
Staff noted that they’ve heard positive feedback from both students and staff at the school about the idea of switching to trimesters, with some seniors being “bummed out” they will never get to experience them at Elkhorn Area High School.
Staff said the change isn’t expected to occur until the 2016-17 school year, giving them time to figure out how to implement the schedule change as smoothly as possible.
A video of the hour-long presentation will be available in a video of the School Board meeting on the school’s website, elkhorn.k12.wi.us. For school board videos, visit the website, click on School Board and Community in the center of the page, choose School Board on the left bar on the next page and finally click School Board Videos.
