Students, parents sound off as North Van high schools dump semester system

Some North Vancouver high school students and parents say they’ve been blindsided by a school district decision to switch back to a linear course schedule next year – just two years after most high schools were switched to a semester system.

Unlike the last switch, students and parents say this time they weren’t consulted on the change.

And not everyone is happy about it.

An online petition started by a Handsworth student asking to keep the semester system generated more than 1,200 electronic signatures in just a few days.

The change will impact students at Handsworth, Argyle, Seycove and Windsor schools.

Ilona Kuligowska is the mother of a Handsworth student who said she was surprised to get a form letter from the principal at the end of February, informing her family of the change just days before students were due to make course selections for next year.

In the letter, administrators said the decision to switch back to a linear system was made after months of “thoughtful consultation” that included students and parents.

But Kuligowska said she’s not aware of any parents or students being consulted – with the exception of a handful of parent advisory council reps who were called to a meeting after the decision had been made.

Unlike previous changes where parents had a chance to respond to timetable surveys, “we had no inkling this decision was being considered,” said Kuligowska. “There wasn’t even a courtesy notice saying, ‘Hey we’re going to look at this.”

“I still don’t have an answer about how they arrived at this decision. It’s rather maddening this got changed and we don’t know why.”

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, high schools in North Vancouver ran on a variety of timetable systems. Sutherland, for instance, has always run on a semester system, while Argyle previously had a linear system in which students take eight courses on a rotating schedule throughout the school year.

During the first full school year under the pandemic, secondary schools switched to a cohorted quarter system. In that system, students took fewer courses at one time, but classes were longer, and students completed them on a concentrated quarter-year schedule before rotating to a new block of classes.

The following school year, most schools – apart from Carson Graham – started running on a semester system, in which students take four classes per term and then switch to new classes halfway through the year. That decision came after an email survey of high school parents and students that showed 70 per cent favoured the semester system.

Kuligowska said she likes the semester system better because it’s more flexible in terms of class scheduling. Many senior high school students start thinking about which courses to take to satisfy university and other post-secondary program entrance requirements as early as Grade 10, she said.

Focusing on only four subjects at one time is also less overwhelming than trying to juggle eight classes, she said.

Brayden da Roza, a 15-year-old Grade 10 student at Handsworth, said most students he’s talked to would prefer to stick with the semester system. Students aren’t happy that they haven’t had a say in the decision, he said.

“They say they consulted with students but given what I’ve heard from my classmates and what I’ve heard from people around me, I don’t think that was the case at all,” he said.

Da Roza said he’s also worried that having to juggle eight courses will cause students a lot more stress.

Chris Atkinson, assistant superintendent of the North Vancouver School District, said the decision to switch high schools back to the linear system was made after considering the interests of students needing the most support at school.

Teachers and administrators felt “students who needed the most support benefited the most from the linear system,” he said.

Students who use special learning services or who are learning English as an additional language “get support every other day all through the year” under the linear system, he said, while under the semester system they only receive that support for one term out of the year.

Students in advanced placement courses, and International Baccalaureate programs, who only have exams in May, also do better under the linear system, he said.

There are pros and cons of both systems, Atkinson added.

The semester system does provide more flexibility in fitting course into a timetable, for instance. Now students who want to take on extra classes that have perquisites will have to take those classes online or through summer school, he said.

Atkinson said the two surveys done of parents and students showed most preferred the semester system, but that isn’t what the decision was based on.

“It was always an intent to support most [students],” he said.

One North Vancouver high school won’t be making the switch. Sutherland will remain on the semester system, as it has for many years, to accommodate both teachers and students who prefer that, Atkinson said.

Meanwhile Chrissy da Roza, Brayden’s mom, said she’s not happy with the way the switch has been handled. “There was no consultation, no notice,” she said. “It seems to have been pushed through in a secretive way.”

In September, public high schools in West Vancouver also switched back to a linear system after two years of the semester system.

Spokesperson Tricia Buckley said parents, students and teachers were surveyed and the majority preferred a linear timetable.