S2 Ep4: Reimagining Seat Time and the Traditional School Bell Schedule, Part 1

When teams of educators, students, and community members across the nation work to redesign high schools, one thing that repeatedly stands in the way is the school schedule and the need to meet seat time requirements. There is no better example of how the 20th Century designed high school no longer works in the 21st century than seat time. It is based in the idea that how much you learn is determined by how long you spend sitting in a classroom and originated at the turn of the 20th century as it means to standardize student learning experiences.

A hundred years later, the standards and accountability of credit students needed to graduate remains largely the same, and this essentially leaves no flexibility in a student's schedule for any form of experiential or out-of-school learning. At the time when the sources and location of knowledge and training have multiplied exponentially, it is the innovative efforts like New Hampshire's Extended Learning Opportunity Network that helps to break the gridlock of seat time requirements.

In this episode, Robert Balfanz is joined by Kerrie Alley-Violette, ELO coordinator of the Sanborn Regional High School and president of the ELO Network, and Sean Peschel, ELO coordinator at Oyster River High School and vice president of the ELO Network to discuss the innovative work happening in New Hampshire.