Alternative schedules are more like college schedules. Students are in each class longer, but they only attend a given class on a given day, not all seven classes every day. Class periods now range from 66 to 90 minutes each. Some schools are adopting year-round schedules that offer shorter grading periods with longer breaks in between. In her freshman and senior English classes, she said the shorter breaks would result in less review than is required after a long summer break.
Educators say alternative scheduling and year-round school offers flexibility.
Tammy Vermillion would love to see more flexibility in her son's class schedule. There is so much that is expected of them in a day. Vermillion's son, an eighth-grader at Noblesville Middle School, has several elective classes, like band and foreign language, that he chooses to pursue. He hardly has time to study, she said. It's almost as if he has to choose one or drop out of something.