What will it take to created expanded and fairly open access extra-curricular, credit-earning, hands-on lab and science class-room opportunities for BHS students at LBL and Cal? (Perhaps there are already some? If so, are they enough and if not what would take to expand them?)

My rationale for asking is that many at Cal and LBL have had and/or are great teachers… and that, I won’t believe the denials, both institutions have the capacity. What your institutions won’t pay in taxes they ought to give back in community service.

Ms. Myrick wrote:
“Since elimination of double period science in 2003, achievement has declined. For example, in chemistry the percent of students proficient declined from 48 % in 2003 to 37% proficient in 2009. In order to maintain the quality of the current program existing labs MUST be retained. Students need more time in class/labs, not less.”

I taught science at BHS from 1996 to 2004. I taught both double-period and single-period “college prep” courses (Integrated Science 3-4 was BHS’s only single period UC lab science at the time). I left to write curriculum at Lawrence Hall of Science. I am now teaching in another Bay Area high school.

When we moved from double-period science classes to the current single-period plus one lab/week schedule (I was still at BHS at this time), many science teachers claimed that we could not possibly teach the science curriculum in that amount of time. My response was “ask a social studies teacher, as an English teacher, ask any other teacher if s/he can get through the state mandated curriculum in a single period, and if they would like double periods.” Clearly, the more time you have with students, the more they can learn. But to say “we need more time than other disciplines” does not take the entire school into consideration. Everyone could use more time, and if science classes get more time, it comes out of students other times.

So, yes, if you take away time from students in one discipline, you should expect their achievement to decline. But that does not mean that you must keep the imbalance of time in that discipline.

Most high school science teachers teach their curriculum in single periods, and manage to fit in a significant amount of lab time. In fact, the proposed bell schedule I saw posted included 58 minute classes, thus allowing more time for labs than the traditional ~45 minute class periods. I know there are teachers who don’t do many labs during their “normal” class time, and this is a shame. The state requirement that 20-40% of class time is in hands-on lab is there because students learn and retain more when they get their hands on materials in well-designed lab. And it does not require an additional lab period–I have been complying with this requirement for 15 years, and I am not the only teacher in California doing so.