On Creating the Schedule...

Three At Home, One Away

Did you know that when Dartmouth decided to go co-ed, in 1972, that they at the same time adopted their “Dartmouth Plan,” a year-round schedule broken into quarters. Dartmouth hangs it’s hat on this unique program. It is said that they created this to increase enrollment without increasing the facilities. However, the rumor is that they adopted this plan because it allowed them to admit women without reducing the number of men. The “Dartmouth Plan”, therefore, was apparently created as a way to assuage the resistance of losing the number of males enrolled, while allowing the school to go co-ed.

Sometimes, strange forces drive school schedules. The derivation of SEED’s Three at Home, One Away schedule came out of a brainstorm with Marco Morrone, a former colleague. We were working at a start-up school in Northern California, renting an odd space in a performance center. The school, at the time, was six years old. We had grown from 40 in the first year to 215, and we were busting out at the seams.

Marco and I shared the same free period, and without a classroom or office to work in, we sat on the floor of our reception area. We were told that soon we’d have our new campus: the money was there, the land was secured, the builders were ready. But, wary of the optimism, we would waste our entire prep period concocting wild ways in which to deal with too many students for too few classrooms.

We talk about the “Ah-ha” or light-bulb moment for our students. Well this felt like a full on electrical storm when we stumbled upon the rough draft of SEED’s year-long schedule. Like the Dartmouth Plan, we looked at a quarter system. Unlike the Big Green, whose students have one quarter of vacation per year, we recognized that we could use that quarter as an equitable enrichment time. Therefore, every quarter, one grade level is off-campus, involved in life-changing experiential education.

Many studies show that the education gap is more closely tied to disparate vacation experiences rather than differences in school systems. In other words, those students with access are able to do things over their breaks which keep their brains ticking; while many underprivileged students are unable to spend the time as academically productive. SEED’s schedule would give all its students the opportunity to enrich their studies with global and local exposure and experience.

Imagine the energy that this would create. Every quarter, a grade level is away, sending e-mails back to school and posting blogs on their experiences. Every quarter, a grade level has just returned- changed, enthused, motivated. Every quarter, a grade level is preparing for their trip- excited, anxious, curious. The schedule creates perpetual energy, curiosity, engagement and excitement.