New Policy: Fixed A/B Day Schedule

There has been a change in scheduling as A and B days are now fixed in the schedule for the year.

There has been a change in scheduling as A and B days are now fixed in the schedule for the year.

For the 2013-2014 school year, there is a new policy at Dominion in which “A” and “B” school days are permanently assigned to each day.

In past years, there has been a flexible, alternating A/B day schedule.  If there was a snow day on what was supposed to be an “A day”, the day on which students would return to school would be an “A day”; however, this is not the case now.

According to Dr. Brewer, the fixed, A/B day schedule is county-wide for all Loudoun County Public Schools including high schools and middle schools, and should be a permanent new policy for years to follow.

Also according to Brewer, the principal of Loudoun County High School, Bill Oblas, first pitched the idea for the new schedule during a monthly principal’s meeting over the past summer.

“I was surprised; all of the principals were on board,” Brewer said.  In fact, Brewer cannot recall a single objection from any of the LCPS principals.

The new fixed schedule could potentially create issues if there is a large disparity in the actual amounts of “A” versus “B” days.

“We’ll fix it; change an ‘A’-day to a ‘B’-day if we have to, or vise versa.  We will address any problems that may arise,” Brewer said.

Brewer believes the new schedule will not negatively affect students.

Ms. Wingfield, an Advanced Placement Biology and Independent Science Research teacher, feels otherwise.

“I’m not a big fan…if we have a lot of snow days, we miss uneven class time.  It’s unfair to the kids,” Wingfield said.

Wingfield also said, “ISR won’t be hit as hard as AP”, as students in the Independent Science Research class do a lot of work outside of class, come in before school, and stay late after school.  Any loss in class time would not detrimentally affect these students.

AP Economics and AP US Comparative Government teacher, Mr. Welling, is concerned that an imbalance in the number of “A” versus “B” days could academically slow down his classes on both days.  Welling likes to keep his classes even and test evenly for obvious reasons.

Tracy Kamis, ATLAS board member and parent, sees both the pros and cons of a permanent A/B schedule.

“If by chance there are more than one or two school closures for one type of day, then that may put those students missing several classes from those closures at a disadvantage,” Kamis said.

However, Kamis feels that “one benefit of the schedule is that if school has to be missed for a doctor’s appointment, appointments can be scheduled during Titan Time without fear of a school closure changing the schedule.”