I was a teacher in the Charlotte/Mecklenburg School System for nine years teaching Social Studies and coaching at a very progressive school named West Mecklenburg High School. Four years before leaving to continue my education in a doctoral program our school began to discuss changing our schedule to the block. We voted down a change to the Alternate A/B schedule that year. We continued to research the issue and the next year voted overwhelmingly to adopt a 4x4 semester plan. The change was one of the best experiences that happened in my teaching career.

Our school experienced the following:

An increase of students on the A and B honor roll
A decrease in the number of F's
A decrease in the number of both in school and out of school suspensions
At the end of the first year over 90% if the teachers supported the change and close to 90% of the students stated they did not want to go back to the old system.

Personally, the 4x4 block schedule changed my whole classroom:

My student load was reduced from 150 students to 85 students I gave more homework and classwork because I had students for long periods of time, more time to grade papers due to increased planning time, and had more grades in my grade book. My students' grades went up. I got to know my students better. I called a much higher percentage of parents because of the fewer students and longer times to make those contacts. I was only able to cover the exact number of units, but was able to do each topic in more depth.

Please feel free to contact me with your comments.