The proposed calendars are attached again. However, the committee also wanted to provide some information on another option that was considered and discarded.
Trimester Calendar
The focus group considered different calendar options before deciding on the two to be proposed. The first of these options was a calendar based on the quarter system. The Option 1 and Option 2 calendars are divided into 9 week increments and can be used on the quarter system. The second of the two options was a calendar based on trimesters. The focus group largely felt that there were too many unknowns in moving to a trimester calendar and it was not moved forward. If Incline Village schools were to move to this calendar, it would have been in 2014-2015, this would have allowed the school time to adjust the master schedule and develop the program. So that readers could see and ask questions surrounding the trimester calendar which was not moved forward and for ease of comparison, the 2013-2014 trimester calendar is posted, the research surrounding trimesters can be read, and the bullet points of the discussion by the focus group are below.
Please don’t hesitate to email Bryn Lapenta, Senior Director with the Washoe County School District with your questions at
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.
Features
• Ends the first trimester before winter break with credit recovery opportunities in prior to the holiday.
• Shortens the grading periods so that they are every 12 weeks (approximately) instead of every 18 weeks.
• Allows high school students to be able to earn 30 credits a trimester if a 5 period day is used at the high school. If a 4 period day is utilized there would be 24 credits possible as there is currently at Incline High. There is no effect on middle school credits earned.
o This allows students to accelerate or remediate during the school day as needed.
o Additionally allows students to earn more credit during the course of the 4 years of high school instead of in the summer and through other sources for admission to some colleges
• Could enable the ability of students to take more electives depending on the design of the master schedule.
• Reduces the number of classes taken at one time to either 4 or 5 per trimester, depending on the school schedule.
• Shortens the summer to 8 weeks from 9.
The focus group discussed the possibility of moving to a trimester calendar. The following comments were made:
• We are unsure of what the schedule would look like with trimesters.
• There is a two year adjustment period with implementation. This means that the existing juniors and seniors in 2014-2015 would likely have scheduling issues. Freshman and sophomores in 2014-2015 would likely not have scheduling issues.
• It doesn’t seem right to sacrifice two years of students for something we aren’t sure of.
• There were concerns on when an elective would fall into the student’s schedule. Would they have the first semester of Algebra 2 the first trimester, an elective the second trimester, and then the second semester of Algebra 2 the third trimester?
• Mrs. Cooper has worked in trimesters schools in the past, while she could see their benefits, she cautioned the group that it takes a few years to adjust because students who are already attending the school and are closer to graduation, may not be able to fit classes into their schedule.
Possible Student Schedule 2014-2015
Trimester 1 Trimester 2 Trimester 3
Trigonometry (H) –S1 Elective* Pre-Calculus (H) – S2
Elective Chem 1 (H) Elective**
AP US History – S1 AP US History – S2 AP US History – Test Prep
AP English Language-S1 AP English Language-S2 AP English Lang.-Test Prep
ROTC V ROTC VI Elective
*There is a 12 week gap in between Trigonometry and Calculus.
**Chem 2 (H) would be taken in the first trimester of Trimester 1 in year 2015-2106
• AP students would have the AP class for first and second trimester and third trimester would have a class to study for the AP exam. This would mean little or no space for electives.
• AP students would not be able to take more than 5 AP courses per year.
• Ends too late in June to be able to hire students to work in the summer.
• Concerned that the learning loss we are trying to prevent will occur with this system.
• The schedule will be difficult to build in a small school.
• What if the electives don’t challenge the students? How will we with a limited number of teachers be able to add more electives that actually have meaning?
 2013-2014 Current Incline calendar Option 1.pdf | [ ] | 53 Kb |
| 2013-2014proposed Incline calendar Option 2-1.pdf | [ ] | 53 Kb |
| 2013-2014 Trimester calendar.pdf | [ ] | 51 Kb |
| Trimester Thesis.pdf | [ ] | 264 Kb |
| Trimester Research.pdf | [ ] | 350 Kb |
| trimester FAQ.pdf | [ ] | 147 Kb |
| PB_V5N6_Summer_2007_EPB.pdf | [ ] | 105 Kb |
| Gap retention in trimester schedule.pdf | [ ] | 289 Kb |
| block vs trimester.pdf | [ ] | 13 Kb |
