Glenbard District has implemented the long-awaited 2024-25 school schedule, which includes the Glenbard Hour, PLC Day, and Block Schedule. A while back, The Glen Bard published A Comprehensive View: 2024-25 Glenbard District Schedule, which outlines the concept of a block schedule, its various types, the initial plan for implementing it in the new school year, and addresses student concerns about the transition, along with measures taken to address those concerns.
Glenbard Hour
As noted previously in the Glen Bard article Admin Evaluate Effectiveness of Glenbard Hour; written by Jack Boczkowski in which the different opinions of the Glenbard West students and Staff. Overall, there have been mixed reactions about the overall effectiveness of the Glenbard Hour. Glenbard Hour, which is 40 minutes of restructured class time, is used for in-school activities (named “advisory”) such as safety drills and student surveys. In an interview, Glenbard West principal Ben Peterselli mentions, “It is essential that we share information with students that usually would have been, before Glenbard Hour…during class time.”
In addition to the advisory, students may seek support from teachers in courses they may struggle in. In the article previously mentioned, Assistant Principal of Operations Stacy Scumaci states, “… kids get their own choice and can work on things they enjoy.” Boczkowski continues by writing, “Scumaci also stated how Glenbard Hour is in a pretty good spot as it is but holds the potential to be even better in the future.”
In early October, The Glen Bard staff sent out a form in which a sample of 178 first-year (freshman) students and last year (Seniors) (both classes having roughly equal numbers) were asked about the opinions of this year’s Glenbard Hour. The Glen Bard found the following:
When given the choice of 1 to 4, where 1 was “needs to change,” and four was “it is fine how it is,” freshmen and seniors who participated stated an average favorability score of 3 out of 4. Seniors had this to say about their rankings. “I have no problems with GH [Glenbard Hour]. It is beneficial. Oppositely, another senior stated, “I would rather not make it required” (anonymous Senior students, class of 2025). In contrast, a freshman student stated, “I have not found a use for it like I do not need any support, but the Aud[itorium] is not quiet” (anonymous freshman students, class of 2028). It is important to note that freshman students started the school year while Glenbard Hour was an established part of the school year; seniors started Glenbard Hour halfway through their time at Glenbard West.
While administrators and teachers work to make Glenbard Hour as accessible to students as possible, it is still tricky, especially for content-heavy courses such as math and science. That being said, there have been some changes to Glenbard Hour behind the scenes. Mr. Peterselli, in his interview, explains, “We increased the number of seats that are available for students in our large spaces…this year we have done 200 seats [in the cafeteria and auditorium].” Peterselli mentions a “welcomed change” to the functionality of the GSD #87 app used to sign in to Glenbard and Collaboration Hour, which came with many unforeseen issues. As a district-developed app that launched last year, students were not acclimated to the use of the app. In addition, the app would crash or not allow students to sign up or attend classes, which resulted in the administration’s decision to mass-assign students to Glenbard Hour locations. However, “[t]he app works, and students understand the expectation to assign themselves a location. I do not feel it is something we necessarily have to do,” remarked Peterselli.
Block Schedule
As noted in our previous article about the 2024-25 schedule, there are several Block schedules; however, Glenbard chose the Hybrid block schedule. The Hybrid Block is a regular block schedule that does not occur every day, allowing for in-depth instructions for part of the week.
Last year, Mr. Peterselli mentioned that the block was the biggest unknown in changing our schedule. Peterselli stated, “That is the million-dollar question right there. What are we going to do with everybody?” This year, the biggest unknown has arrived, and the responses to the opinions of the block schedule were recorded from the same survey mentioned above:
In the survey, which was also out of 4, more than half of Seniors (precisely 62.7%) stated that they found the Block Schedule favorable. An anonymous senior said, “I like certain things about the block schedule days, as occasionally it is nice to get more sleep. However, I feel like some classes are too long, and teachers try to jam as much as possible. Often by the end of the day, I am exhausted.” By contrast another senior stated “The block doesn’t work for most classes but my art classes are nice on block days. There are some advantages but I think there are a lot of disadvantages.” Almost a third of freshmen (roughly 29.5%) stated that the “block needed to change,” a randomly chosen response by a freshman stated, “I do not like the block schedule days very much as all of my difficult classes are crammed into one day, but that does mean the next day I get all of my easier classes.” Oppositely another freshman stated “Gives us time to catch up in class and get extra time to do our work!”
It is important to note that the favorability of seniors might come down to a single period; in this case collaboration hour. This 90-minute period, which takes place during the fourth, fifth, or sixth period, in other words, the student’s regular lunch period, allows upper-level students (juniors and seniors) to leave the building (late arrival or an early dismissal), dubbed Open Collaboration Hour or just OPH. According to the survey, when extrapolating only the senior class, the survey found that out of the 89 senior students, all had OPH. This opportunity is unavailable to first-year students, such as freshmen and sophomores.
Conclusion
Glenbard Hour has seen many changes this year, of which admin state positive results; additionally the Block schedule needs time to be molded into what Glenbard needs. According to the Coaching Corner, a informational summary of what the three instructional coaches are doing state “She [Nessa Slowinski, a Glenbard west instructional coach and English teacher] is also trying out different block structures in her own classroom” mentioning the use of “ a station rotation model and a content + investigation structure” in order to test the limits and threshold of longer periods of learning. The new schedule has been a necessary and long awaited, it allows for students to have an estimated 170 minutes of extra studying time (in both Glenbard Hour and Collaboration time according to Glenbard west admin). Peterselli concludes this year’s interview with, “You know what, I think our staff has done a tremendous job preparing for this and making sure that the experience for kids during class time has been positive.”
