Changing times: Othello High School to start new schedule in 2022-23 school year

OTHELLO — A whole new class schedule will come to Othello High School for the 2022-23 school year.

Principal Scott Swartz said the new schedule has been a long time in the works.

“We’ve been working on the plan since the 2019-20 school year,” he said.

Currently, OHS is using a four-period day, instituted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new schedule will have five periods, and the other change will be from semesters to trimesters.

“We’ll have three grading periods,” Swartz said.

Prior to the pandemic, OHS had seven classes per day. But seven classes and large class sizes meant teachers didn’t have as much time with students as they wanted, according to a presentation on the new schedule on the district’s website. Seven periods also limited options in classes that included labs, according to the presentation.

District officials considered, but rejected, a six-period option that would’ve kept a four-quarter school year.

High school classes start late on Monday, so classes will be 10 minutes shorter on Monday than they will Tuesday through Friday, Swartz said. Students will be required to attend a daily advisory class. Students will receive either a passing grade or an incomplete for the advisory class, he said.

“This will open things up more for our students,” Swartz said.

The five-period class schedule will give students more options for elective classes, he said, and OHS administrators are considering adding more electives to the schedule for the 2023-24 school year. Administrators also plan to increase the choices available to students in core classes.

High school staff are discussing, for example, a class on the history of rock and roll for the history curriculum, Swartz said.

Class offerings are changing to reflect the changing workplace, Swartz said. The high school offers robotics and coding classes, and there’s an engineering class that builds and tests aircraft. Another class teaches students about unmanned aerial vehicles.

“They’re out there flying drones around, programming drones,” Swartz said.

Students graduating from high school have a lot of options, he said, including attending colleges, trade schools, apprentice programs, training programs, and getting out in the workforce. With more elective options, students will have more chances to try possible careers, Swartz said. The goal is to help OHS students find classes, and eventually careers, they really like.

“We want to try to give them more options, look at different things,” he said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.