Easton NAACP Meets With School Board Members

Easton Area School Board members met with the city's NAACP chapter Monday night to talk about issues concerning the community.

But most of the discussion with board members Janet Matthews and Frank Pintabone was dominated by a single issue: the board's vote last week to schedule at .

Starting with the 2012/2013 school year, the high school will switch from nine 41-minute periods to five 80-minute periods. 

The schedule would include a mix of classes that met 90 days out of every semester, and those that would meet every other day. School officials say it will allow students more time to put what they've learned into practice.

But community members gathered in had questions about how effective it would be, or whether -- as one resident put it -- the new scheduling would lead to teachers just lecturing for 80 minutes.

"This isn't a magic pill. And it's going to come down to our teachers," Pintabone said. 

There were also concerns about how other school districts had adopted "block scheduling" -- a more rigid cousin to flexible scheduling -- only to eventually abandon it.

Matthews said the district has spent two years preparing to make the switch, and will continue to try to educate parents about the change. She said the district has set up a website dealing with flexible scheduling, and plans to hold meetings with parents and students.

"If we keep doing the same thing over and over we're going to get the same results," Matthews said, referring to the high school's less-than-adequate .

Not every question dealt with scheduling. Jay Jackson, the NAACP's education chair, said it was "a travesty" that the district in leadership roles.

"Easton is behind the times in education," Jackson said.

Pintabone said this was an issue . "We're looking at it," he said, but noted that the district couldn't afford any new hires right now.