Salt Lake City high schools will kick off a new school year on Wednesday with an altered block schedule — despite the protests of teachers.

The Salt Lake Teachers Association (SLTA) has been fighting the schedule changes since December because it says the “modified block” format was created without “shared governance,” a contractual agreement that requires the Salt Lake City School District to include teachers and parents in making decisions at individual schools.

“All our high school teachers are furious. Parents are furious because they were left out of any kind of decision making for their own kids,” said SLTA Director Elaine Tzourtzouklis. “This is one of the things we have the right to participate in. [The school board and administration] took that away without consulting anyone.”

After the union filed a formal grievance with the school district in January, both parties agreed to hire a third-party hearing officer, Kaysville attorney Felshaw King, to review the case and make recommendations. In late July, he concluded that when principals presented the modified-block schedule to school governing councils — after they secured the school board’s endorsement last November — the district violated shared governance.

He suggested the school district put off the changes so that teachers and parents would have a chance to mold a new schedule — without first being told by principals that key elements of the modified-block plan were “non-negotiable.”

But on Monday, the Salt Lake City Board of Education held an emergency meeting to reject King’s findings and approve the modified-block schedule at West, East and Highland high schools. The school board is not required by state law or by contracts to abide by King’s recommendations.

“We felt like the preponderance of evidence showed the principals had made heroic efforts to involve the community and teachers in decision making,” said board Vice President Heather Bennett. “I know that the Salt Lake Teachers Association feels that they should have had more voice in the creation of the model before it was presented. But the truth is that models and ideas can be proposed by any stakeholder — and principals are certainly stakeholders.”

Teachers and parents, Bennett noted, were consulted at each school about how to implement the modified-block model. That’s why, she said, there are scheduling differences among the three schools.

At Salt Lake City high schools, students typically take eight “block” classes that are taught every other day so that students attend four blocks each day.

The modified schedule lengthens blocks from 80 or 85 minutes to 90 minutes and allows teachers to opt to split blocks into two, 43-minute classes that are offered daily. Schools also are offering five blocks per day so that some students can skip the first block and start school at 9:20 a.m. and end at 4:05 p.m. The standard school day at all three high schools is now 7:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., lengthening the school day by 15 to 25 minutes.

Few teachers have chosen to teach daily classes. Only 8.7 percent of classes at East High, 4.5 percent at Highland and 1.3 percent at West will be taught daily.

Proponents of the new schedule say it boosts flexibility in students’ schedules and allows some subjects that may suffer from the every-other-day model, such as languages, math and music, to be taught daily.

But to Rebecca Gardiner, a parent of two students at East High, the changes are adding time to classes that are already too long. Already, she said, the block schedule strains students’ attention spans.

“As a parent, my grievance is: 90 minutes is a long time,” she said.

Gardiner said when she first attended meetings about the schedule changes last fall she was hoping the district would consider a schedule with 55 or 60 minute classes. But the only options presented to parents were versions of the 90-minute, modified block schedule.

“Maybe in their minds they really think they have been really open throughout this whole process,” Gardiner said. “As a parent, it was a shock.”

Still, Susan Webster, a parent who was chairwoman of the East High Community Council last year, said Principal Paul Sagers “made an amazing effort” to gather feedback from teachers and parents and incorporate it into the schedule.

“Both of my children are now in college,” she said. “I wish they had an opportunity to take advantage of what this will offer students, which will be more face time with teacher.”

rwinters@sltrib.com

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