LINDEN - It was adults teaching adults in the conference room at Northridge Middle School for most of the day Thursday.
Northridge Middle School played host to an eight-member team from Louisville to discuss the advantages of the trimester and bonus time which the local school has implemented and is getting good results with.
Thursday's group from Jefferson County, the largest school corporation in the Louisville area with 21 middle schools, is looking to move to the trimester plan next fall. It will be the first middle school in the state to go to a trimester and they will be a pilot for all the schools in the state. Out of all the places they could have gone to learn about the plan they chose Northridge.
"It's an honor for us to be able to have people come to us and ask questions about what we are doing, especially when it's a big urban school district," North Montgomery Superintendent Dr. Robert Brower said. "We were one of the first schools to implement this and now it is catching on all over and people are coming to us to help them make a smooth transition. When you talk with these people you are planting seeds and you never know what the rewards might be somewhere down the road. Maybe someday they might be able to help us out somehow."
North Montgomery High School went to the trimester schedule in 1997 and Northridge went to it in 2003.
While the size of the two school corporations is vastly different, many of the ideas will be the same.
Northridge Principal Angela Blessing said she enjoys sharing what she and the staff have learned.
"It's such an honor to be chosen to be modeled after," she said. "I like it because it's a chance to really show off my staff and the students. Without everyone being onboard it will not be a success and I told the group here today that was the key. You have to sell it and get everyone on the same page and our staff has really embraced it and that is what has made it a success. It was just an amazing experience for me and my staff."
Blessing told the visitors such a switch will not happen without some bumps in the road.
"A lot of it we learned from trial and error," she said. "Our school corporation gave us the freedom to try something, fail and then try again. You can't be afraid to try new things."
Both Brower and Blessing told the Louisville delegation they understood that there would probably be some opposition to the switch, but in the end most teachers, students and parents enjoy it now.
"I remember sitting in a room when we started talking about this for the middle school and people kept saying 'It can't work'," Brower said. "Then I just asked why not?"
According to Blessing one of the advantages for the trimester is it can accommodate everyone.
"If you have a student who is struggling in a subject it can be stretched out over three trimesters or the entire year," she said. "On the other hand, if you have someone who is moving along at a quick pace they might complete a course in just one or two trimesters. If we have a sixth-grade student studying math and they get done with their sixth-grade book in two trimesters then they would start on the seventh-grade book the third trimester. It's possible we could have someone finish geometry by the eighth grade. That's just an example."
The cooperation between Northridge and the Louisville school is not over. In March a group of eight Northridge teachers and administrators will be going to Louisville to conduct a professional in-service where they will answer even more questions.
"I just can't say it enough, it's quite an honor for our school to be the only place they are wanting to model," Blessing said. "I guess that means we are doing things right."
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