“Chuck, sent his kids to schools in an Ontario board that desemestered all of its high schools for a few years about ten years ago. Chuck, would you like to tell our readers what happened to student test scores during the short time that desemestering was in effect in your school board?”

As a parent I can’t speak to student test scores and how they compare with student scores when the board switched back to semesters.

What I can tell you was it was a fight switching back to semesters after several desemestered years. Parents and students liked the desemestered years quite a bit.

The board desemestered under what was new board management direction and with the support of board superintendent back then.

Parents, students liked desemestering because it led to a more thorough covering of subject matter and was less rushed. If a student missed a day or two, it was possible to still keep up. There was a whole different atmosphere in the school as well.

All through the desemestering years there was a push on by the teacher unions to move back to semestering.

It is my belief that the unions saw an opportunity when management changed at the top to move back to semestering, and that’s what eventually happened.

Oh sure, our school held community “information” sessions disguised as a time for parents and students to have their say, but it was all smoke and mirrors because it had appeared at the time that we were just going through the motions of discussion with the decision to go back to semesters already made.

Can’t speak for how it played out in other schools within our board but I do know that at one school council meeting after the board’s decision (prompted by the OSSTF) the principal told parents on council off the record that there was really nothing parents could do to keep desemestering.

If Malkin goes back to the OQE archives I believe there was a story about this board’s decision in the OQE newsletter at the time.

This is another example of why centrally-planned, government-run schools are bad for our children.  Bureaucrats with little or no experience in the classroom are making decisions that will have little impact on them personally.  Many years ago I saw a poster produced by the Department of Education titled ?How Children Learn.?  It was in the shape of a pyramid with many levels in different colours.  No doubt this was used to determine the curriculum for all government-run schools in Ontario.  It occurred to me that while it might be valid, it could also be flawed.  It might be appropriate for some children, but not for others.  Yet this would be the only model used by our schools for all of our children. 

I?m sure many remember ?open classrooms.?  My children went to a school built on this idea.  They were in a classroom with two classes and two teachers.  The teachers found a way to divide the room in two, and no doubt agreed on a schedule were each would take turns talking to their students.  Maybe open classrooms would work with the right teachers, but it seemed to be a handicap for my kid?s teachers. 

We need schools where the principal is focused on the needs and goals of the students and parents.  This can only happen if the parents have the option to take their children (and give their money) to a better school, not just another school operated by the same monopoly.  Vouchers might be an improvement, but the Department of Education will likely put more and more restrictions on where the vouchers may be used, effectively regaining control of education.

Something that parents figure out very early on in their experiences with the public education system is that often the optics don’t tell the truth. It’s especially so when it looks like the boards and school managers go to great lengths to solicit the opinions, and wishes of parents/students/community only to have already made a decision.

Thank you; interesting history.

Most likely I’m restating the obvious, but having only 4 or 5 subjects every semester seems extremely boring to me. The lack of variety combined with a very high volume of new knowledge (hopefully!) would drive me personally, a fully formed competent, professional adult with a lot of experience learning, off the wall.

I still remember in high school that the days I found to be the most difficult were the one day a week when by a scheduling constraint we happened to have 2 classes in the same subject one after another.
NOTE: Generally our scheduling tried to avoid such situations so even if we had let’s say 2 literature classes the same day they were almost never scheduled one after another, but with other classes in between.
And our attention span, trained during 8 years of elementary school to be quiet and pay attention was on the average much longer than what I see around me today (due to the lack of training).

We only had such situations of double sequential scheduling in subjects where we had more that 5 or more classes per week that is math or maternal language and literature, never foreign language, chemistry, psysics, phys ed.

75 min classes is way too long.

And this day in, day out ... very few adults could learn in that rhythm for months in a row.
The rate at which one needs to assimilate information is just too high for most students.
Reflecting about what you’ve learned, making connections ... just forget it.

It goes against all known mechanism of remembering and learning.
It is well known that we tend to remember best the beginning, the end of a presentation and from the middle just what’s unexpected or unusual. So a change of subject, even if it seems to waste time tends to increase retention.

Maybe the top students for which all the previous knowlege is solid and automatic and have good study habits can mostly manage, but for all the others it’s a recipe for getting overwhelmed within a few weeks even if you don’t miss any days in school.

Why do we have to make everything harder than it needs to be?

Does anybody happen to know .. are there any non-semestered high schools in TDSB?

Does anybody happen to know .. are there any non-semestered high schools in TDSB?

Yes, there are many.  The ones I know of offhand are Humberside Collegiate (in the Bloor West Village area); Oakwood Collegiate; Martingrove Collegiate; Jarvis Collegiate; Lawrence Park Collegiate; North Toronto Collegiate; West Humber Collegiate; Malvern Collegiate; Riverdale Collegiate; Northern Secondary; Earl Haig Secondary, and some of the special program focused schools like Etobicoke School of the Arts, Ursula Franklin Academy, Rosedale Heights School of the Arts and a couple of the alternative high schools like Avondale.

There are quite a few more, I just don’t happen to know which ones. You can probably search the TDSB website to find out; they have lots of material about high school selection for students and parents, and semestered vs. de-semestered is one of the major issues. People often feel strongly about it (and many feel as strongly pro-semestered school as folks here feel the other way).

Ok, thank you, I will check.