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Saturday, November 22, 2014

Duval overlooks the simplest answer when tackling middle school reform.

Sometimes I really just want to go down to the school board building and knock some heads together. I mean seriously people this doesn't need to be treated like brain surgery, I mean unless we are going to start doing transplants.

When talking about middle school reforms the board suggested adding accelerated programs, turn them all into magnets, push academic competitions, link middle and high school colors, putting a chess club in every school, and blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada.

Look I love the idea of having a chess club in every middle school but the problem is the schedule. 8 ninety minute classes every two days is just way to much. Heck a full time load in college is 4 classes and I an adult who loves going to the movies start to fidget in movies well before the ninety minute mark so I can imagine what horror middle school classes must be.

If they are serious about improvement we need to go to a six period/fifty minute classes that meets everyday. Kids will have less time to get bored and thus aggressive, the material will be covered every day rather than every other and as a teacher I can tell you it's easy to go from zero to fifty, where zero to 90 is a lot harder.

Throw in smaller class sizes and mental health and wrap around services then we would really be cooking with gas.

The school board is looking at every solution but the best and most obvious but then again if they weren't it wouldn't be Jacksonville.

To read more click the link: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-11-21/story/duval-middle-school-reform-plan-may-go-board-vote

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