Schools

Blake Middle School Academic Year in Review: Bell Schedule

This is part five of a seven-part series that takes an in-depth look at Blake Middle School's 2010-2011 academic year; goals for 2011-12 academic year; a new bell schedule; personnel changes; China trip and the transition to a new principal.

Editor's Note: Medfield Patch will provide a summary of Robert Parga’s end of the year report for Blake Middle School and take an in-depth look at goals for the 2011-12 academic year; Blake’s upgrades in technology; the school’s China Trip; A new bell schedule and personnel changes. We will conclude the series with the transition from Parga to as Blake Middle School principal. This is part five of our seven-part Blake Middle School series.

 In an effort to maximize existing resources, Robert Parga announced a minor change in the Medfield High School and Blake Middle School bell schedules for the 2011-2012 academic year.

The schedule will, according to Parga, enable both schools to capitalize on each building’s resources, getting more out of what the district already has.

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“What we are looking to do and what we are going to be able to do as a result is capitalize on the fact that the buildings are right next to each other,” Parga said. “What we are looking at is in essence when the bells go off in one building, they are going to be going off in the others and what that allows us to do is share staff.”

Parga pointed out that sharing staff to some degree already takes place but to date has not been “ideal.” The new schedule looks to change that.

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“It has been challenging [sharing staff] because the bell schedules are a little off,” Parga said. “Going forward with sharing some teachers from building to building - in theory a teacher can teach the first two periods in one building and then walk over and teach the third period in the next building.”

Parga said this will help staffing and the school budget long term because it will take advantage of the school buildings being right next to each other, keep some staff members full-time, create more educational diversity and get more out of the current budget by maximizing resources. The change will not result in a drastic overhaul of the current schedule either.

“Just to make things clear, I want people to understand that we are not doing away with the block scheduling at the high school,” Parga said. “Basically we are looking at a 90-minute period, at Blake they’re going to be two 45-minute periods right in there.”

Parga credited the administrative team involved in the process to make this schedule change effective and ready to begin in 2011-2012.

“A lot of hard work from Judy [Noble] and the administration here at the high school and at Blake allowed us to figure it out and that’s going to be a good thing for everyone,” Parga said. “Knowing that when situations come up when we are going to need to share staff we are going to be able to do that.”

To read part one of this series, .

To read part two of this series,

To read part three of this series,

To read part four of this series, click here.


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