Ohio students making every second count with flex periods

BRIDGEPORT – Bridgeport Exempted Village School District is working with students to make the most of opportunities provided by the new “flex” period each school day.

This school year, officials say students now have an additional 35-minute period each day for access to intervention and more time to complete their assignments.

According to school officials, the new period was made possible by adding five minutes to the end of the school day, altering the other class times from 43 minutes to 40 minutes, and reducing the time between classes.

The new period has caused no interruption to district programs and creates an overall yearly increase of 39 class time hours.

The flex period begins shortly after 11:30 a.m. but can be moved in individual cases for intervention.

Superintendent Brent Ripley, Bridgeport High School Principal Jack Fisher, Curriculum Director Leslie Kosanovic, and Special Education Director Beverly Prati met on Oct. 3 to review and refine the daily schedule now that the period has been implemented.

With the new schedule has come a need for organization to ensure that students are using that extra time to improve areas that need it most, and the Bridgeport district is up to the challenge.
Ripley said the focus is on improving math.

One step has been identifying students who need additional math help. These students could be grouped together by common need and assigned two or three flex periods a week that prioritize math.

“We put this flex period in, in an effort to help kids with that more personalized, more relationship-based learning. That support for them,” Ripley said. “I just want to make sure it’s structured and it’s being used in a way that is best for the students.”

Kosanovic said the district aimed to increase student achievement in certain areas, specifically math for high school students.

“The teachers, in the prior year’s schedule, didn’t feel like there was enough time for that intervention,” she said. “There wasn’t additional time set aside for that purpose. There also wasn’t additional time set aside if you needed to meet with students.”

She said teachers also needed more time to talk with their students about college or career options. The flex periods were created to answer that need.

“Teachers can access students and students can access teachers based on need,” she said.
Fisher commented on the evaluation process.

“We’re getting more specific data, and that’s what we are using in the process right now. Already though our students have been working with all of our math teachers, all of our teachers, to get interventions and supports from just general math work, maybe specific homework assignment work,” he said.

“The feedback from some of the math teachers I’ve talked to have been really good,” he said.

“They have been using this a lot.”

Fisher has also observed the flex periods in action.

“It’s teachers sitting at the table with a couple kids, working with them on specifics of whatever that kid’s needs are at that moment,” he said.

“This is a really nice thing that we have implemented right now,” Fisher said. “So far, it is going well.”

They reviewed the importance of efficiency and helping students make the best use of this period. Students and teachers are utilizing the app, Securely Flex, which allows the school to quickly track the students’ schedule changes and how they utilize their flex time.

Fisher said the app is valuable in providing accountability.

“We did this whole schedule change last year, created this whole new schedule to allow for flex time,” he said. “We want to make sure the kids can get quickly to where they need to be, and also the teachers know where the kids should be, the office knows where the kids should be.”

Data collection will also show how students are using flex time.

“It helps us to figure out where we need to improve and adjust.”

Fisher said the district would know more about the new schedule’s effectiveness after this school year’s test scores and first nine weeks’ grades are in.

Kosanovic looks forward to having data for more specific groupings in the future.

“That’s going to help our math teachers hone in more on really super specific math standard needs,” she said.

“We’re given time for needed interventions, which we didn’t have,” she said. “We needed this.”

She added they will also take stock of progress again after November and December, as well as after each nine weeks.

“We also meet with content and grade level teams through the year,” she said. “Through this year we’ll have some additional benchmarking assessments.”

Ripley emphasized the importance of communicating with the student’s families to secure their support and cooperation.

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