Parents and Schedules

The big "discussion" (read as borderline fistfights between teachers in the hallways) this year has been about our school schedule. Currently we have a 4x4 block. Students take four 85-90 minute blocks every day and get a new set of classes after the Christmas break, they take 8 classes year. We have maintained a large compliment of elective courses and a curriculum that despite the best efforts of test blinded state government intervention and NCLB, is student focused and actually prepares kids to go beyond high school. I teach three classes a day with one 85 minute plan period. I see about 90 kids a day.
I like teaching in a block schedule though it does have some drawbacks. The biggest one seems to be a math continuity issue. It is possible for a kid to have as long as 9 months between math classes. Teachers have to do a lot of reteaching when this happens and the state test grades for math are the lowest in the school. There could be many reasons for the low test scores outside of the schedule but the schedule is an easy place to point the finger. [sarcastic aside: it naturally has nothing to do with the fact that the math dept. generally tries to teach a 50 minute class in a 90 minute block, homework time etc...] The schedule has been in place for many years and all other departments have seen steady test score growth until recently...our scores "flat lined" for a biennium...horror. SO, keeping with the model of inefficiency that seems to be education, a scheduling committee was formed to investigate the highest scoring schools in the state to see what their schedules are then recommend a change to our board. Yours truly is on the committee, joy. It turns out there is a small number of parents who HATE our current schedule and all jumped at the chance to be on this committee so that they could tell us just how much they hate it and how quickly they want to change it so that their students who are in the early stages of high school won't have to deal with our 4x4 any more.
The first option they came up with (I was out with a sick wife and 2lb baby in the NICU) would have cost us most of our elective courses and anywhere from 6-12 teachers. It was, after some drama including the formal write up of our principal, nixed. The parents were chagrined as they realized that they were dealing with people's lives not just little Johnny's ability to take consecutive math courses so that he could gain a point on a useless test...
Breath and re-focus Smithie.
Upon my return to this wonderful group of joyful folks, focused only on the needs of their five or six children in a school of 1200 the fun had begun again. A redo of teacher, student and parent surveys have shown that the majority does not want change. BUT, the Principal won't touch the committee with a 39 1/2 ft. pole, and we are about to hire a new Super, resulting in no guiding power so the wonderful 'rents have decided to force the issue of schedule change. It won't happen next year like they want it to. In fact at least one has stopped coming to meetings because of this fact. But I see change ahead. My hope is that we find something that allows us to maintain our ability to meet the real needs of our students beyond the artificial requirements of testing and keep our schools unique character in a sea of cookie cutter test factories.

Anyone know anything about 3x5 trimesters?