Brookings school officials shelve trimester system

The trimester system is the latest casualty in the Brookings-Harbor School District’s search for a way to improve academic achievement at the middle and high schools.

After a brief presentation to the Brookings-Harbor School Board in October, Superintendent Brian Hodge, along with his administration team, shelved the concept after studying other districts that either use the trimester system or recently left it.

“Coos Bay School District left the system last year,” Hodge said. “They went to a block schedule.”

“We found that we would not get as much out of it as we thought we would,” Hodge said.

The district would have to hire more teachers to implement the trimester system.

“We’re not sure we have the funds for that,” he said.

Hodge and his team, which includes Brookings-Harbor High School Principal Bryan Wood, Azalea Middle School Principal Aaron Cook, and Kalmiopsis Elementary School Principal Helena Chirinian, continue to seek educational models with a track record of success in similar school districts.

The challenge is to create a system where students can have longer class periods  for more extensive learning opportunities without extending the school day or school year, while maintaining the number and variety of classes students need for graduation requirements and college preparation.

Other systems under consideration are block schedules and lab classes.

Block schedules use alternating days of longer classes. Some models use an every-other-day 90-minute, four-period system, while others use a five-day system, with four 90-minute classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and three 2-hour  lab classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Brookings-Harbor High School used a block system for four years (1994-95 to 1997-98) before returning to the more traditional seven-period schedule.

Hodge is also considering the possibility of creating math lab classes where students can do homework and receive extra math instruction.

“We do have room for that,” Hodge said. “I wouldn’t have passed my college math courses if it wasn’t for math lab.”

The district will continue the search until the right program comes along.

“It has to be tight, functional, really meet the needs of our district,” Hodge said.