Course Loads and Lunch Period at Herricks High School-11/13/2006
From: Dr. John E. Bierwirth
Date: November 13, 2006
Re: Newspaper Article – Course Loads and Lunch Period at Herricks High School
As in any good school district we are constantly re-examining and refining the district’s instructional program. At the high school level, for the past couple of years, we have pushed for “quality over quantity.” In the process of examining our programs, it has become clear that a percentage of our high school students are over-extended to the point where it has become counter-productive. For those students being over-extended has (a) affected their health, (b) produced excessive levels of stress and/or (c) reduced the quality of their academic work.
Addressing this will need to be done on an individual student basis since the maximum load one student can carry is different from what another can carry. The load even varies for the same student from one year to the next. We have, however, decided to address one aspect of this situation immediately. In the past, Herricks has allowed high school students to skip lunch with relatively few restrictions. (The students do, in fact, eat lunch but do so while sitting in an academic class.) in most years 25 to 35% of Herricks High School students have no “free” lunch period.
Starting next year no student will automatically be allowed to skip lunch. Our reasons for this are as follows:
- We have been stressing the importance of quality over quantity in defining our vision of a good high school education. As part of that effort we have asked students and their families to give serious consideration to the number of courses students take, pointing out that the State requires far fewer courses than most Herricks students take.
- Data from the preliminary survey last spring indicated that almost 20% of HS students reported studying 4 hours or more every night and an additional 12% reported studying 3-4 hours every night. Some of these students may be able to sustain high quality work in all of their courses with this level of homework but others may be pushing themselves to the point where the load is counterproductive.
- As we ask more and more students to take advanced level courses such as AP or even higher level electives or research programs, all of us---students, parents and staff---need to look closely at what each individual student is capable of carrying at a given point in time.
- College admissions offices have responded favorably to our instructional plans. They indicate that a student transcript which shows that a student challenged himself or herself with demanding courses in a variety of academic areas and pushed himself or herself to achieve as close to his/her full potential in each is what they prefer to see in an applicant. A large number of courses is not in and of itself impressive.
- Some parents and students indicate that they find it difficult to resist the pressure to take additional courses. I have no data on this, just anecdotes. In some cases parents have implied that they do not feel that they can resist the pressure even when they do not feel that it makes sense for their son or daughter to take fewer courses and have lunch
No student will be allowed to skip lunch in order to take an additional class unless they can demonstrate all of the following:
- All of the courses they are proposing are critical parts of their four year academic plans
- They have the capacity to handle the level of work required at a level close to their potential in all of the courses and
- They can handle the load without a counterproductive level of stress
The absence of one or more of these will be cause for the district to deny a request to skip lunch in order to take an additional class.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
