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Granite to pilot double‑block junior‑high schedules to expand electives and share teachers amid declining enrollment
Summary
District leaders described a pilot to move some junior highs to a six‑period/double‑block schedule intended to lengthen daily core instruction and increase elective options by enabling teacher sharing across schools. Officials said it is a pilot, will be evaluated, and could cause conflicts with sports or extracurricular timing.
Parents at a community Q&A asked about a new junior‑high schedule pilot at several schools, including Bonavville. District leaders said the pilot is intended to increase daily instructional time in core subjects while expanding elective opportunities through an A/B day double‑block model and to make it feasible for teachers to be shared across schools as enrollment declines.
“Declining enrollment means we need schedules that allow sharing elective teachers across junior highs so a kid who wants Spanish, music or theater can still access those classes,” a district leader said. Under the pilot concept, math, science and English would be longer daily, while electives would rotate on alternating days so students could take as many as six electives in a semester.
Officials emphasized tradeoffs: scheduling changes may conflict with sports seasons and some families and staff may prefer alternative start times used in other pilots (for example, Cottonwood’s late‑start model). District staff said previous pilots attracted students for credit recovery more than for later start times and that reports will be shared with the board as evaluations proceed.
Administrators framed the pilot as experimental: “It is a pilot — we like to see what works and what doesn’t. If it fails, we’ll fail fast and move on,” a district staff member said. The district plans to collect data on participation, impacts on electives and any effects on class sizes before recommending broader changes.
Staff said the schedule change is an attempt to balance instructional time in core subjects, equitable elective access, and operational constraints such as bus routing and sports schedules. The district invited continued parent input as it pilots and evaluates the model.
