On Monday, September 8^th, RCHS principal, Mrs. Jennifer Mattingly, went on record saying that there will be a "school wide" schedule change in the immediate future for Rockcastle County High School. According to Mattingly, some new sort of campus-wide approach to the daily schedule will likely be put in place starting at the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year.

As of now, exactly what the new type of schedule will be is undecided, Mattingly said. The choice, however, has been narrowed down to three basic choices: the A/B schedule on which the freshman operate now, a modified block schedule with some classes 90 minutes and some running 50-55 minutes in length, and a five-period day with all five classes lasting about 70 minutes each and where some classes would last the entire year while some would not.

According to Mrs. Mattingly, while the new scheduling system may still be in doubt, the fact that RCHS will make a move to a different scheduling approach is not. The administration has decided that it is time for a change. "The old 4x4 block schedule has run its course," Mattingly said.

Administrators are hoping that the new schedule will turn our school around and bring our test scores up.

Mattingly said that she has been working to change the schedule for the past three years, and that she is committed to making the best change possible for the school. Last year, when Mattingly tried to create the change in school-wide scheduling, not everyone was ready for that big of a change yet.

Now, she believes, the students will handle the switch just fine, but that it will be harder for the adults to come around to a new way of thinking on how the school can function.

Mattingly will propose the change to the School Board in October of this year. Until that time, the administration and the staff are working to determine the strong points and weaknesses involved in each of the proposed approaches for the schedule.