Stephanie Croston

    The schedule will look different, and Seward High students have 18 more classes to choose from for the 2008-09 school year.
     "Almost every department added at least one class," Chad Denker, SHS principal said.
     The primary complaints Denker heard before and during his first year at SHS were the need for another music teacher and a lack of course options for students. Both are addressed in the 2008-09 schedule.
     Denker said the district undertook a year-long study to see what other schools were doing and to talk to the district's teachers about what classes could be added.
     He said they didn't want to add new classes at the expense of those already offered, which would lead to classes with too many students in them.
     Seward operates on a block schedule, which means four 90-minute classes daily with a 25-minute study hall called access for freshmen and sophomores. Juniors and seniors are allowed to leave the building to go to jobs, Denker said.
     Next year's schedule will be four 88- to 90-minute classes with a 44-minute period at the end of the day. The day will be extended by 12 minutes to accomodate the changes, Denker said. School days for juniors and seniors will actually be 37 minutes longer than this year.
     The second-most obvious changes comes with scheduling band and choir. In the existing block
    
     schedule, a student who wanted to take both all year would only have two periods left each day to attend classes required for graduation.
     Next year, band, taught by Ben Hanika, and choir, taught by Leslie Stratton, will be combined into one class period, each meeting for half the period. If a student is not in both, 45-minute classes will be offered. However, the music and other 45-minute class must be taken for two quarters instead of just one.
     The change will help keep the numbers in band and choir more stable, Denker said. This year, for example, 90 students were in marching band with 50 to 60 in concert band. During the third quarter, only 10 students were able to sign up for band.
     "We want to use both music teachers," Denker said. "This way students will be forced to stay involved in music. Before, they could do just one term."
     It will also help for district music, which is in April, he said.
     "I think the pay-off will be worth it in the end. It's hard to put on a concert with 10 kids," he said.
     To make the schedule work, Denker took two minutes from each class period and one from each time between classes and added them to the 25 minutes at the end of the day.
     The new schedule should not affect the bus schedule. The day at the high school will begin at 8:10 a.m. and end at 3:32 p.m. This year it was 8:15 to 3:25.
     The fifth period will still be a study hall for freshmen and special education students in all four grades, he said. Teachers will still have a 90-minute planning period during the day.
     The new classes will be offered during fifth period. Among them are digital photography, video production, welding, business law, sports marketing, music theory, drama, sewing, leadership, zoology and meterology.
     Denker said he did not have to steal sections from the classes already offered to make room for the new offerings. In fact, he said, it's opened opportunities for additional sections of classes already on the schedule. It's also provided a chance for freshman level English and math intervention classes for students who are below grade level entering high school. Students are screened in eighth grade to see if they would be eligible, but the final decision is left to the parents, Denker said.
     Teachers already know what they'll be teaching next year, so they have the summer to plan their curriculum and order material. Denker said the added classes will not affect the district's budget.
     "We tried to be fiscally responsible this year in anticipation," he said, adding that the two new teachers were hired because the need was already there, not because of the added classes.
     There are concerns with the additions and the elimination of the study hall for sophomores, Denker said.
     "Any time you create that much change, there's unease," he said. "Can the students handle it?"
     Students have already submitted their initial requests for classes for next year, and a software program is helping Denker assign them to sections. He said the student response to the changes has been positive overall.
     "If it's good for the kids and the kids are excited about it, it's always worth it," he said. "If it doesn't work, I have myself to blame."