The Learning Curve: Three San Diego Unified High Schools Transition to 4×4

Two weeks ago, San Diego Unified’s board meeting was beset by educators and families pissed about a wonky change the district was attempting to push though – changing high school schedules. 

The board was supposed to vote on whether to transition four schools from a traditional six-period schedule to a 4×4, or block schedule. Under a 4×4 schedule the academic calendar is split into two halves, during which students take four classes at a time. 

The schedule allows students to take two additional classes per year, opening up the potential for students to take up to eight additional classes during their time in high school. That could mean students take more electives or college courses or even career and technical courses. Those extra courses are important for the district’s larger goals of increasing students’ career and college readiness.  

But they also represent a potentially significant challenge for teachers, who would now teach more classes a year. Individual class sessions would also be longer, while the overall time a student spent in each class throughout the year would be shorter.  

Many district schools already use a 4×4 schedule, but those challenges are why a parade of Point Loma educators and families decried the transition, which many felt was being foisted upon them without the opportunity for input. The board ultimately tabled the vote. 

Last night’s meeting was very different. The board approved the transition of three high schools – Canyon Hills, Madison and Mira Mesa. They left Point Loma High School out. Leadership from each of those schools spoke about the process by which they eased their staff into the big change.  

Jeff Sabins, principal of Mira Mesa High, said he’s been having conversations with staff, parents and students for nearly four years, a far cry from the rapid rollout stakeholders at Point Loma described. They’d also allocated over $300,000 in funds to provide hundreds of planning and professional development days aimed at helping the transition to the new schedule. 

“I really intentionally started with staff and I did that to not polarize the community,” Sabins said. “What I didn’t want to happen was for parents and students to see the value in this but my staff wasn’t quite there yet.” 

Even then, the transition has plenty of opponents. 

Two years ago, Sabins gave staff a poll that found about 58 percent of staff supported the change, while 19 percent were against it and the rest of staff was unsure. Even after the robust engagement, those figures didn’t change much. In the latest poll, 60 percent of teachers supported the change while 40 percent did not. 

“We have folks who are in support of this, we have folks that are hesitant about this but it’s all in the area of what is best for kids,” Sabins said. 

Leaders of Madison and Canyon Hills also spoke. The process was more staff-driven, and less controversial, at each of the schools. At Canyon Hills, for example, a poll eventually showed that 82 percent of staff were in favor of transitioning to the 4×4 schedule.  

But at Madison, like at Point Loma, the transition was presented less as a possibility and more as an inevitability. Lily Fuller, a Madison teacher and the site’s School Governance Team chair, said staff was very curious about the possibility of transitioning to a 4×4. But because they understood the change to be a mandate, instead of having input sessions with community, they instead had informational ones.  

“That’s kind of a missing piece,” Fuller said. “Yes, we were very invested in exploring the schedule, but not all of the pieces of getting that community input … have been in place in a way that really asked people for their feedback, not just providing them information on what it will in fact look like.” 

Even given the lack of feedback, though, Fuller said a poll showed that about 80 percent of staff were interested in moving forward with the schedule next year. 

Despite the Point Loma community’s reticence, the schedule is still coming for the district schools that don’t already use it. It just may take a little longer for some.  

“It’s clear that you’ve done tremendous amount of work, your communities are ready to go, we should get behind you and support you – and for school communities that still need some time to get there we’ll work with you at the appropriate pace,” Trustee Richard Barrera said. 

The board voted unanimously to approve the schools’ schedule change. 

It’s ‘A Parent’s Guide’ Season 

It’s (somehow??) that time once again, where your trusty Voice of San Diego staff hit the spreadsheets and start to craft our yearly “A Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools.”  

Schools are meant to help equip kids with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in our wild world, but despite that goal they can be pretty hard for the average person to actually understand. So, for nearly 10 years we’ve taken on the daunting task of creating a comprehensive guide that helps bridge that gap.  

Not only does it provide families with a breakdown on oft-ill understood facets to our education system, like school choice and after-school care, it’s also full of useful datapoints about local schools. We’ve created original metrics that dive deeper than topline figures, like our income vs. test score metric.  

Figures like test scores are closely correlated with income levels, so when we look at test scores – high or low – often what we’re seeing is the poverty level of the community that school serves. This metric dives deeper, offering a more nuanced look at school quality.  

That’s what this guide aims to do. Provide thoughtful, nuanced context that genuinely helps parents better navigate the world of education. 

As we embark on this not at all stressful project that never ever ever stretches us thin, give last year’s guide a read. In it, you’ll find not only the handy compendium of stats, from chronic absenteeism rates to our new career and technical education metric, but also info on everything from how to get involved in your child’s school to what to keep in mind when thinking about after school care. 

Oh, and can you wish us luck on next year’s guide? Please? 

What We’re Writing 

As districts across the county grapple with enrollment decline that will likely get worse in coming decades, I started to wonder if there any San Diego Unified schools were underenrolled. That could be a sign of schools at risk of closing in the future, should declines continue as they’re projected to. So, I asked district officials for the capacity of each of their schools to compare against their actual enrollment. There was a problem, though. District officials said they don’t actually know how many students each school fits – and wouldn’t be able to generate those numbers districtwide.  

School district superintendents often try to stay out of the fray of school board politics. During a recent panel at Politifest, though, David Miyashiro of Cajon Valley said he’s going to buck that trend. He plans on playing an “active role” in upcoming school board elections.