New scheduling combats old tradition

‘At St. Teresa’s Academy, no two schedules are alike; each student is unique and carries a schedule created especially for her. A student leaves St. Teresa’s with considerable experience in decision-making and self-direction of time.’Â This is what the STA website states about the modular scheduling that we have had in past years.

This year, although the schedules are designed specifically for STA, they are not designed uniquely for each student. Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s schedules are almost identical; Tuesday and Thursday’s are as well.

This means that most days you will have class with the same people, rather than having class with different people everyday. Students will now move with the ‘same homogeneous group.’Â This does not benefit the STA student. By having class with the same people almost every day, exposure to different opinions on certain topics is limited. Students lose the opportunity to learn from more people in their grade. Educational chances will be lost because of PowerSchool.

Before PowerSchool, any given student had an average of 40 different classes with 40 different groups of people each week. Now, each student only has eight different classes, meaning there is less of a chance to expand from their comfort zone and interact with different people. Because of this, it will be harder for each grade to really bond like grades in the past at STA.

The administration should continue to work toward mixing students within each class to keep the bond among the sisterhood. According to their website, PowerSchool is ‘designed to accommodate…the most complex schedules,’Â so they should be able to accomodate STA.

Due to the use of the PowerSchool scheduling system, STA has lost one of its major selling points to prospective students: STA has lost a schedule that gives girls opportunities to meet more students in their grade or from other grades and to grow closer as a community because of everyone’s diverse schedules.

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2 Responses to New scheduling combats old tradition

Jane Kaufman

September 15, 2010 at 8:09 am

I am an STA Alumna (2004) and current employee at Blackbaud, a leading provider of software to the nonprofit sector. Rockhurst and Sion both use our software solutions in their offices. When I heard STA was evaluating a switch from SASI (their former student information system provider), I reached out to a few faculty/admin members to let them know Blackbaud offers a great Student Information System built specifically for private schools – and that it could accommodate the trademark Mod scheduling. STA’s modular scheduling was such a neat and instrumental part of my STA experience – and, as Chinesa mentioned, helped all students get the most out of their classes and classmates (in both an academic and a social sense). PowerSchool gave all SASI owners a great deal on software and I’m sure that was a big factor in the administration’s decision to purchase PowerSchool over another provider.

I hope STA re-evaluates its software purchase within the next year or figures out a way to reincorporate Mod scheduling into PowerSchool – make it a part of the current Inspiring Women Capital Campaign! I would surely increase my monthly donation if I knew part of it went to finance bringing back the MODS (and 15/16 Frees ).
Chinesa Rusch

September 2, 2010 at 1:26 pm

As an STA alum, I am against any change to the mod schedule. I loved having the mod scheduling and I saw it as one of the most unique parts of the STA experience. It gave me the opportunity to engage academically with all sorts of different girls and get their insight that I otherwise would not have gotten. I dont see how changing the schedule can be good for the girls of the academy, and I wonder how they feel about this change to our tradition