The precision of the teacher's contract will keep the new middle school on a similar class schedule next year.

Mandan Junior High Principal Harlan Haak told the Mandan School Board Monday the academic changes that will happen next year when the seventh and eighth grade start in the fall.

Time between classes will be two minutes, a minute shorter than they currently are, and class periods will be a minute longer. It still conforms to the teacher contract requirements of seven periods during a seven-and-a-half-hour day.

Haak would like to see some wiggle room in those requirements. Some day he'd like to look at a block schedule. He presented a concept Monday to initially use with a small group of students.

"We learned from summer school that students do better with a greater amount of time with fewer subjects," Haak said.

The block schedule would be for students who need extra academic help or motivation to stay in school. Instead of taking four core classes each semester, the students would take two the first quarter of the semester, then take the other two the second quarter of the semester.

"Too much is lost when you rotate on a semester," Haak said.

Core classes, which are English, social studies, science and math, would be taken the first four periods of the day, and electives would be taken the last three periods.

Students could be referred to the block schedule by teachers or through the Northwest Evaluation Association Measure of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) test, which could be used as an assessment tool for placement in the block schedule, Haak said.

In addition to explaining the block schedule, he also talked about the possibility of evening and weekend hours for the school library and safety features of the building, such as separate entrances for bused students and parent drop-off and the lack of stairs.

Teachers at the junior high and sixth grade teachers are working toward a middle school endorsement required by the Education Standards and Practices Board. The endorsement is needed because the school is changing from a junior high to a middle school with the eventual addition of sixth graders. So far, five junior high employees have the endorsement and 60 percent of the remaining employees are completing the requirements.

Employees have until the start of the fall 2009 school year to earn the endorsement. It requires four on-line classes, required reading and time in a middle school setting.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com.)