The purpose of this blog is to solicit feedback regarding an article that Ruthie sent out to all of you on the Francis Parker School and changes that they made in their calendar. Please offer your thoughts, reflections, and viewpoints here.
I will speak to the trimester issue in a later post, since most of my thoughts on it are really related to Upper School issues more.
Regarding the interim program that Francis Parker School implemented, the most essential piece to the success of this is faculty buy-in, more so than other aspects of our program. The faculty designs the interim offerings and then brings them to the student body for enrollment. This raises some questions that must be addressed right away: 1) What level of academic rigor are we looking for in the interim program? Some programs use this as an opportunity for students to explore various interests (at my previous school, the head of school would offer a course to teach students how to play bridge), while others expect the courses to have some level of academic rigor. This determination would need to be made in advance. 2) Would our offerings all be on-campus, or would we allow off-campus offerings? If we allowed off-campus offerings, would we limit them strictly to things within the Jackson metro area, or could students use this to go some distance from Jackson? 3) Related to the second issue is the matter of cost. If we allow off-campus offerings that require travel, would we want to limit the amount that such programs could spend?
At my previous school, the interim program went through a series of incarnations before finally dying out due to a lack of faculty support. However, other schools, such as the Randolph School in Huntsville, has had a very successful interim program.
I will speak to the trimester issue in a later post, since most of my thoughts on it are really related to Upper School issues more.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the interim program that Francis Parker School implemented, the most essential piece to the success of this is faculty buy-in, more so than other aspects of our program. The faculty designs the interim offerings and then brings them to the student body for enrollment. This raises some questions that must be addressed right away:
1) What level of academic rigor are we looking for in the interim program? Some programs use this as an opportunity for students to explore various interests (at my previous school, the head of school would offer a course to teach students how to play bridge), while others expect the courses to have some level of academic rigor. This determination would need to be made in advance.
2) Would our offerings all be on-campus, or would we allow off-campus offerings? If we allowed off-campus offerings, would we limit them strictly to things within the Jackson metro area, or could students use this to go some distance from Jackson?
3) Related to the second issue is the matter of cost. If we allow off-campus offerings that require travel, would we want to limit the amount that such programs could spend?
At my previous school, the interim program went through a series of incarnations before finally dying out due to a lack of faculty support. However, other schools, such as the Randolph School in Huntsville, has had a very successful interim program.