School board adjusts schedule
BY TOYNETT HALL
Staff Writer

HOWELL - In an effort to use staff members more efficiently while meeting the state's health and physical education requirements, the Board of Education has approved a plan to change the Howell School District's current middle school class schedule.

Howell Middle School South Vice Principal Paul Farley prepared the proposal and presented it at the board's May 29 special meeting.

The proposal offered seven scheduling options which all sought to maintain the core curriculum instruction time, increase the health and physical education instruction time and effectively use human resources.

"We really made a full commitment to maintain the team concept after getting feedback from teachers, parents and board members," Farley said.

"The second thing that we made an effort to do is maintain the core curriculum instruction time, which includes subjects such as language arts, math, social studies and science. We did not want to cut back on what we were offering in those four subject areas," Farley said.

Although core curriculum instruction time was not reduced, world languages and special subject times were impacted. Under option one, the new schedule proposes to offer more world language time for grades six and seven, and less world language time for grade eight.

Superintendent of Schools Enid Golden said, "We have come to the conclusion that there is no perfect schedule. The current schedule is not perfect and it's just an impossible task. We think our recommendation (option one) is one we could make work."