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By SHARON KILPATRICK
Rappahannock Newt Staff Writer
The School Board accepted Superintendent David Gangel’s recommendation that block scheduling at the high school be delayed for another year.
Originally the school system had planned to implement block scheduling for the 1995-96 school year.
At Tuesday night’s meeting Dr. Gangel said that the high school faculty is divided on whether to choose a semester or alternate day system. Under a semester system, students would take and complete four classes the first semester and take four different classes the second semester. The classes would meet for longer periods than is possible in the current seven-period school day.
Under the alternate-day system classes would also be longer, but students would take eight classes at once with four meeting on one day and four different ones on the next day.
Dr. Gangel said there is also a great deal of uncertainty about how much implementing a block scheduling system will cost, and it is late in the budget process to have such uncertainty.
He said it will be necessary to add more courses to implement block scheduling. That will possibly require more staff, more classrooms and more books.
The school system is expecting an increase of about $28,000 from the state for the coming year’s budget, he said. Any additional expenses beyond that amount must come from local taxes. He said he believes this will be a year with a “budget crunch.” Implementing a 3 percent salary increase will cost about $120,000, he said.
Stonewall-Hawthom District representative John Tole said he felt delaying block scheduling was another example of an opportunity to bring increased creativity to the high school curriculum that was coming to nothing. “I’m disappointed and frustrated that we can’t get going on this. It distresses me greatly,” he said.
Chairman Beverly Massie said, “I’m frustrated too, but I would rather defer it for a year and make sure we have covered all the bases. I would rather see a good program than go off half cocked.”
The board adopted a motion tc have a committee of teachers, ad
87.9%