News Photo by Reagan Voetberg The crossing guard at Ella White stands at the corner of Ripley Boulevard and 3rd Avenue on Thursday, the last day of school for Alpena Public Schools students.

ALPENA — Onaway middle and high schools will be changing from a five- to six-period class schedule next school year.

Onaway Community Schools secondary principal Bryan Pyle said in an email that Onaway schools settled on a block schedule format in 2005, and implemented a five-period block schedule in 2009. The talk of switching to a six-period schedule started two or three years ago among the high school teachers during lunch, he said.

“The main reason why we decided to make the change to a six-period day was student success,” Pyle said. “The fast-paced instruction of one-semester-long classes associated with a block schedule was leaving a lot of students behind. Also, most school districts in the state have moved back to a more traditional six- or seven-period day, which made it difficult to set up class schedules for students who moved into our district.”

Slowing down instruction by stretching the length of classes from semester-long to full-year-long will allow more time to teach for mastery, he said. He said it will give the district more time to identify students who are struggling and implement the proper supports so all Onaway students can be successful.

They are also adding a short 20-minute flex period where students can participate in some grade tracking and social emotional learning as part of the district’s new positive behavior interventions and support system.

With the five-period schedule, core classes were all semester long, with the exception of Algebra I, Pyle said. Each core class was worth one credit.

With the new schedule, core classes will still be worth one credit each, but stretched over the course of a full school year. At the end of one semester, a student will earn half a credit for a passing grade in the course. Electives offered as single semester courses will each be worth half a credit.

The one potential downside that Pyle foresees is the lowering of the amount of possible credits for students who struggled with the five-period schedule. To counteract this, the district will be lowering the number of credits required for graduation from 26 to 24, as well as implementing an in-house credit recovery summer program. All Michigan Merit Curriculum requirements are still needed and will not change.

The transition is designed to create a more balanced academic framework across all grade levels, reducing gaps between sequential courses, like Algebra I and Algebra II, and promoting smoother academic progression, according to informational slides posted to the Onaway Area Community Schools Facebook page. The new schedule will provide students with opportunities to explore electives, career pathways, and dual enrollment/early middle college.

The amount of homework will vary by class and teacher, according to the slides. With core classes moving to an entire school year in length, there will be more time for teachers to spread out lessons and the workload over more days, even though the length of class each day will be shorter. Each class will be 55 minutes long, reducing the length by about 20 minutes from the former five-period schedule.

An additional information session will be held at the fall open house, Pyle said. Contact him at BPyle@OACSD.com with questions.

Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.