Dear Board of Education Chair and Members,

Thank you for holding the public comment/hearing for the High School Schedule Assessment on May 2, 2024

We appreciate your willingness to hear all voices and put high emphasis on ensuring every CHCCS student’s academic success, mental health, and well-being, all of which are of utmost importance to us parents as well.

However, as you have heard from numerous students, teachers and parents on the night of the hearing, the proposed scheduling change would be detrimental in many aspects. We, as parents, are deeply concerned about the issues raised by the students, teachers, parents, and some of the BOE members. 

WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO VOTE AGAINST THE PROPOSED SCHEDULE CHANGE.

Here, we would like to summarize the THREE MAJOR CONCERNS the CHCCS students and parents have:

A) Inability to meet the needs of the diverse student population:

The proposed schedule will NOT meet the needs of the diverse student populations. 

For example, students who play sports, pursue Arts and Music, take AP courses, and have ADHD and autism with special needs are all very concerned that the block schedule will have detrimental effects on their high school career in CHCCS.

This goes against the aim of the proposed block schedule to ensure all students have access to robust support and educational opportunities.

B) Negative impact on ALL Students’ academic performance and achievement:

 The proposed schedule will not create an effective learning environment. Due to a drastic loss of total instructional time, students would perform significantly lower in all content areas than those who are in schools using our current traditional 7-period scheduling model, as revealed by scientific findings published in the Journal of Research in Education. Consequently, the proposed schedule change would negatively impact ALL students, especially disadvantaged and marginalized students.

This deviates from the new proposal’s goal of creating a more equitable and effective educational environment for every student.

C) Detrimental effect on students’ mental health and well-being:
 
Extensive long class periods can induce excessive stress, anxiety, attention problems, and classroom disorder among students, particularly during the sensitive and vulnerable stage of adolescence. The American Psychological Association highlights the need to safeguard and nurture the brain, academic, psychosocial, and physical development of high school students. Implementing the proposed 4x4 block schedule could jeopardize the mental health and well-being of many of our students.

This departs from the goal of the proposed schedule to reduce stress and improve student health and wellbeing.

THEREFORE, WE STRONGLY URGE YOU TO VOTE AGAINST THIS PROPOSAL.

Scheduling changes of this magnitude would require the participation of the entire impacted community.

The decision needs to be made with transparency and mutual understanding. It should be based on unbiased, concrete quantitative data and analysis to capture the participation of widely covered and well-represented groups of students, parents, and teachers.

When all of the above is lacking, voting at this stage would be premature, rushed and ill-considered.