Culver tweaks schedule to provide students with time to meet with teachers

 

Culver Academies is modifying its daily schedule this year to include a 55-minute morning break for students to use to meet with teachers, academic staff or counselors, to catch up on homework or to use as they like.

“Students can use this time to meet their needs. It is their time to plan and use. But it does have an academic priority to it,” said Josh Pretzer, dean of faculty. “We are encouraging students to use the time to study or connect with adults for support or extension work, but they may also need a moment to rest, take a walk, read for pleasure, practice music or pursue an independent project.”

Students are encouraged to prioritize that time to catch up on any academic needs and to use the time well.

All Culver faculty, academic staff and counselors will be available to students from 9:50 a.m. until 10:45 a.m. every weekday except for Wednesdays, when the school runs on a different schedule to allow for student life programming. To make time for the 55-minute break, class periods have been shortened by five minutes to 80 minutes.

Teachers can require a student who missed a test or an assignment to make it up during the 55-minute break. Teachers also can require students to meet with them during that time if they are in need of additional help.

The time isn’t to be used as required time for extracurricular activities.

School leaders decided to review the schedule because it hadn’t been changed in more than two decades. The review occurred after a survey created by the National Association of Independent Schools and given to Culver Academies students more than a year ago showed that adjustments were needed to support student well-being, especially sleep.

 

 

Culver experienced and studied several different schedules last year to see what worked best in an attempt to balance time for sleep, academics, co-curriculars and leadership.

Surveys found the students preferred having a set time during the school day where they could meet with teachers rather than at the end of the school day when they felt rushed to get to their co-curriculars.

Another change this year is there are two lunch blocks instead of three. Students reported they appreciated having lunch associated with class. The lunch blocks are either 12:15 p.m. to 12:55 p.m. or 12:55 p.m. to 1:35 p.m. The dining hall remains open from 11:00 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. for those who have open time to each outside of the class structure.

For the second straight year, instructors who teach classes made up primarily of freshmen or sophomores will go to lunch as a class at the Lay Dining Center for the first two weeks of school.

Jackie Carrillo, Ph.D., dean of studies, said the reason for that is because going to lunch can be intimidating for new students.

“Some students were opting not to eat lunch rather than walking into the dining hall by themselves,” she said. “This builds community within the class. My hope is that a new student will find someone in their lunch block class they will want to eat lunch with in the future.”

Carrillo said surveys showed that requiring classes to eat together at the beginning of the year was popular among new students.

There are other options for students looking for lunchmates. The Huffington Library has a table where students can eat and talk about books.

“It’s a nice place for students who don’t know where to sit to have a place with a friendly adult to talk about something that is interesting to them,” Carrillo said.

Other changes made last year in response to the NAIS survey are continuing.

 

 

 

C.Q., or call to quarters, a time when students are required to be in their rooms or in the library for study purposes, is from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., the same as last year. School officials moved CQ up 30 minutes last year and moved lights out up from 11 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. in an effort to give students more time to sleep. Late lights will be until 11 pm., with internet access turned off from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Wake up time is 7 a.m. and no commitments can be scheduled before 7:30 a.m.

Co-curricular time is now 3:45 p.m. to 6 p.m., so the bells on Memorial Chapel have will be programmed to play the Culver song at 6 p.m.

“So the whole community can hear that we are transiting to our evening routine,” Pretzer said.

Teachers are again being asked to keep homework to a maximum of 45 minutes per class a night. Carrillo said that research shows that achievement for high school students increases up to spending a total of two hours a night on homework, but then after that, achievement starts to decrease.

“I wanted to drive home the reminder that these changes we’re making to try to support student well-being and sleep are not in conflict with wanting our students to do well academically,” Carrillo said. “The more well our students are, the higher their achievement will be.”

Faculty also are being asked to post their homework assignments a week ahead of schedule to give students time to plan. Almost 95 percent of students said they found that useful.

Carrillo said the results of the latest NAIS survey show that the changes have been successful in helping students get more sleep. The number of Culver students reporting they were averaging seven or more hours of sleep a night jumped from less than 30 percent during the 2022-23 academic year to nearly 70 percent in 2023-24.

“It may not be where we want it to be, but it’s a huge improvement,” Carrillo said.

The number of students who said they were spending two or more hours on their homework each night dropped from almost 45 percent to 30 percent.

The number of students who said they were happy in the past 30 days increased from about 75 percent to about 82 percent and the number of students who said they were lonely in the past 30 days decreased from nearly 40 percent to slightly over 25 percent.

“I think it has paid off in significant ways. To see this amount of change in a short amount of time is remarkable,” Carrillo said.