North to See Variety of Altered School Year Format

North to See Variety of Altered School Year Format

Wednesday, June 04, 2003 at 15:41

Northern Saskatchewan’s largest school division is giving its schools more room to manoevre in the ongoing altered school year experiment.

The coming school year will be the third and final year of the altered school year pilot project for the Northern Lights School Division.

Last year, there were 3 different formats of the altered school year within the division.  Next year, there will be 11 different formats used throughout the North.

School division spokesman Ralph Pilz says the schools wanted more latitude and Northern Lights had no problem accomodating that request.

Pilz can’t comment on how he thinks the pilot project is working, but does say northern schools have until the end of October to hand in their own evaluations.

The altered school year allows high school students in northern schools to take their first semester exams before Christmas through a combination of an earlier start date in the summer and slightly longer than usual school days.  The experiment has also allowed schools to see if finishing the school year in early June decreases the level of absenteeism at the end of the school year .