Schools • Union says schedule change broke shared governance.

Teachers and their supporters quietly protested the Salt Lake City school board on Tuesday over what they see as a breach of the district’s shared governance policy.

About five dozen people crowded a school board meeting and held up laminated signs that said “I will not be silenced.”

Last month, the Salt Lake City Board of Education approved changes to the high school block schedule over the objections of the Salt Lake Teachers Association, which said teachers were not properly consulted on the creation of the “modified block” format.

But board President Kristi Swett said, in an interview, the district made a “valiant effort” to include parents, teachers and administrators in shaping the new schedule at each school.

Supporters of the modified block say it adds flexibility to students’ schedules — including a late-start option for sleep-hungry teens — and allows some subjects that may suffer from the every-other-day model, such as languages, math and music, to be taught every day.

Susan McFarland, president of the Salt Lake Teachers Association, said teachers support enhancing flexibility for students, but they disapprove of the way the new schedule was introduced to school communities. In late July, an independent hearing officer sided with the teachers’ union and recommended the board start over on consulting with teachers about the schedule. But the board disagreed with the officer’s findings.

Tuesday’s protest was organized to place pressure on the school board to preserve shared governance in the future, McFarland said. Not only teachers, she added, but parents were shut out of the process.

“This board needs to listen to and be responsive to our voices,” said Rebecca Gardiner, a parent of two East High students. “If not, you’ll hear them loud and clear at the ballot box.”

She was the only person who spoke during a public comment period Tuesday, but she received hearty applause from the audience. Gardiner told the school board her neighbors have described the decision-making process as a “joke” and a “sham.”

Gardiner said when she first learned of the proposed schedule change last year, she hoped the district would consider returning to a trimester system with hour-long classes. But after attending a community meeting about the change, she decided a move to the modified block schedule was “predetermined and prefixed.”

Linda Lowe, a science teacher at Glendale Middle School, participated in the silent protest even though her own school was not affected by the high school schedule shift.

“I’m just afraid of losing shared governance,” she said after the meeting. “Sometimes I feel like, bit by bit, parents’, students’ and teachers’ rights are being whittled away.”

Heather Bennett, vice president of the school board, said she understands the teachers’ concerns but she disagrees.

“We did our very best to follow shared governance,” she said. “And we do value it.”

rwinters@sltrib.com

SLC high schools’ new schedule

Highland High, East High and West High now have a “modified” block schedule.

Blocks • Classes are 90 minutes, instead of 80 to 85 minutes, so that they can sometimes be divided into two, 43-minute classes that are attended daily instead of every other day.

Start time • 7:45 a.m. But Highland offers an optional, 43-minute class at 7 a.m.

End time • 2:30 p.m. All schools offer an optional 90-minute class at 2:35 p.m. Students who take this class could skip the first block period and start school at 9:20 a.m. Highland and West also offer 43-minute, daily classes that start at 2:35 p.m.

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