Dalton High School students will have the opportunity for an increased focus on classes while finishing some earlier in the school year thanks to a new schedule format, said Dalton Public Schools Superintendent Steven Craft.
School system officials said this week Dalton High will change from its current “A/B” block schedule to a “4×4” format beginning in August.
The “A/B” schedule, which Craft said began at the school “five or six years ago,” includes students taking eight courses in an alternating pattern each week, with four on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the other four on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Craft said students will still take eight classes under the new schedule but those classes will be divided up by semester, meaning students will take — and finish — four classes between August and December and four other classes from January to May.
“Essentially, students will only take four classes a semester and it will finish at the end of each semester because they will go to that class every single day,” Craft said. “Under the A/B all classes would last the entire year.”
Craft said the decision to go to the block schedule includes making it easier for students to focus on fewer classes at a time.
“When you have just four classes a semester, you are focusing more on less classes at a time, so for us and for our students, we thought that was beneficial for them,” Craft said. “And we thought that was beneficial for our teachers, because they will have less students at a time.”
The Dalton Academy, the system’s other high school that opened in 2021, operates on a 4×4 schedule, making the decision to change the format at Dalton High more attractive, said Craft.
“It will align more with what we’re doing at The Dalton Academy,” he said. “We do have kids that transfer back and forth between the two schools, so we need our high schools on the same schedule. That way, it will make it easy to slide them back and forth. We needed continuity between the two schools.”
Craft said the new schedule will likely help English-learning students and their parents.
“We do have a lot of EL students and they’re still working on learning the language, so what is more beneficial, focusing on eight classes or focusing on four?” Craft said. “And that’s the same thing for our parents that may need to help their students (at home). It’s just a smaller workload. We accomplish the same thing but it’s just more concentrated at one time.”
Extracurricular programs such as athletics and band and special or alternative student programs will not be affected, said Craft. That includes the school’s dual enrollment program, which allows students to earn college credits while in high school.
“Because of the way they can schedule your classes next year, it could actually be more beneficial for kids that want to try dual enrollment because they are finishing a set of classes early instead of yearlong,” Craft said. “So, it may actually increase those opportunities.”
To “ensure students and families are fully informed and supported” of the change, Craft said the system will host three Parent Information Nights on Feb. 3, Feb. 20 and April 14, with the times and locations to be announced.
For questions on how the new schedule could further affect students, people are encouraged to call Dalton High’s leadership team at (706) 876-4800.