Centennial Middle School Schedule Evaluation
Centennial Middle School is currently evaluating our schoolwide schedule to determine which scheduling model will best support student learning and educator success.
For approximately 10 years, Centennial has operated on a 5×5 A/B schedule, which allows students to take up to 10 courses across an alternating two-day schedule. The 5×5 provides important benefits, including opportunities for students to take electives and additional courses. At the same time, parents and educators have raised questions about whether the current model continues to be the best schedule for Centennial. Because stakeholders have shared concerns, we want to honor the feedback by truly evaluating the current schedule system.
There is no predetermined decision to change the schedule. Our goal is to carefully examine the advantages and challenges of different scheduling models, gather more feedback from stakeholders, and determine what will best serve Centennial students and educators moving forward.
Why Are We Evaluating the Schedule?
During the 2025–2026 school year, CMS gathered feedback through informal conversations and emails, an educator survey, the Building Leadership Team, School Community Council, and Parent Focus Group.
Parent discussions generally reflected a shared interest in doing what is best for students and using data and evidence to guide the decision. Educator feedback was more varied, with a slight preference for maintaining the current 5×5 schedule.
Through this process, four primary areas emerged that warrant additional consideration.
1. Frequency of Core Instruction
Under the current A/B schedule, students generally attend each class every other school day. This typically creates approximately 48 hours between instructional sessions, with even longer gaps occurring because of weekends, holidays, school activities, and student absences.
Daily instruction provides more frequent opportunities for students to learn new information, practice skills, receive feedback, recall previous learning, and build upon what they learned during the previous class.
A Utah study examining mathematics performance among nearly 40,000 students across approximately 300 schools found that mathematics performance was generally higher in scheduling structures that included daily mathematics instruction (Murray and Moyer-Packenham, 2017).
This raises an important question for CMS: Does our current schedule provide students with the frequency and continuity of instruction needed to maximize learning?
2. Total Instructional Time
We are also examining how much total instructional time students receive within each course.
Under the current 5×5 schedule, classes are longer but meet every other school day. When compared with a more traditional middle school model such as a 7 period daily schedule, our analysis estimates that an individual course under the 5×5 may receive approximately 39 fewer instructional hours over the course of a school year, or approximately 28.9% less instructional time per course.
These numbers are estimates because testing, assemblies, early-release Fridays, safety drills, and other school activities affect actual instructional minutes.
However, the difference raises another important question: Does our current model provide enough instructional time and frequency for students to master essential course skills and standards?
3. Student Course Load and Organization
One of the significant benefits of the 5×5 schedule is that students may take as many as 10 courses. This creates substantial opportunities for electives, and it also creates organizational demands for young adolescents.
Students may be responsible for managing 10 different courses, teacher expectations, assignment systems, deadlines, grading practices, classroom routines, and methods of communication.
During adolescence, executive functioning skills such as planning, working memory, organization, time management, and cognitive flexibility are still developing. We therefore want to consider whether the organizational complexity created by the current schedule provides the most supportive environment for middle school students.
In addition, as of August 2026, approximately 14% of CMS students were not enrolled in a full school day schedule. Families make this decision for many different reasons, and this should not automatically be attributed to the 5×5 schedule. However, some parents have specifically shared that they chose a partial schedule because they felt that managing 10 courses was too demanding for their child.
4. Educator Workload, Recruitment, and Retention
The master schedule also affects the number of students each educator serves.
As a simple illustration, assuming approximately 28 students per class, a teacher teaching eight classes under a 5×5 model could serve approximately 224 students, compared with approximately 168 students for a teacher teaching six classes under, for illustration purposes, a 7 period daily schedule, a difference of approximately 56 students.
Student load affects much more than class size. It influences time and energy spent through educator planning, grading, feedback, parent communication, student relationships, behavior support, intervention, enrichment, and the ability to know and respond to individual student strengths and needs.
When it comes to teacher recruitment, we have heard directly from multiple teacher candidates who have expressed that they would not be interested in working at Centennial Middle School once they understood the workload associated with the 5×5 schedule. Their concern is straightforward: they can earn comparable compensation at a school just a few minutes away while being responsible for fewer courses and fewer students. At Centennial, a larger student and course load can mean more lessons to prepare, more assignments to grade, more students and families to communicate with, and more individual academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs to support. This is not a reflection of educators being unwilling to work hard or provide meaningful support to students. Rather, it reflects how daunting the overall workload and time commitment can appear when candidates compare a position at Centennial with similar positions at nearby schools. When prospective educators perceive that working at Centennial will require substantially more work for comparable compensation, we risk losing strong candidates before they ever consider joining our school community.
What Scheduling Models Are We Exploring?
As part of the evaluation, CMS and Provo City School District leaders have explored several scheduling models:
5×5 A/B Schedule
7 Period Daily Schedule
4×4 A/B Schedule
6 Period Daily Schedule
Each model has advantages and disadvantages. There is no schedule that maximizes every priority.
For example, the current 5×5 provides the greatest number of course and elective opportunities, while daily schedules provide greater instructional frequency and generally reduce the number of simultaneous courses students manage.
We are evaluating the models using several indicators, including:
Daily instruction: To what extent does the schedule provide students with consistent, daily access to course instruction?
Elective opportunities: To what extent does the schedule provide students with access to a range of elective courses?
Student organization: To what extent does the schedule create a manageable number of courses, teachers, expectations, and assignments for students whose executive functioning skills are still developing?
Teacher preparation time: To what extent does the schedule provide teachers with sufficient daily planning and preparation time?
Teacher student load: To what extent does the schedule create a manageable number of students for whom each teacher is responsible, including responsibilities related to relationships, differentiation, assessment, grading, intervention, family communication, and student support?
Student attention and engagement: To what extent does the length and structure of class periods create conditions in which teachers can effectively design engaging learning experiences?
Classroom intervention: To what extent does the schedule provide sufficient instructional time for teachers to deliver Tier 1 instruction while also responding to student needs through reteaching, differentiation, flexible grouping, formative assessment, and targeted support all within the context of this happening during the class period?
Teacher-student relationships: To what extent does the schedule provide conditions that support frequent interaction, meaningful relationships, knowledge of individual student strengths and needs, and communication with families?
Attendance and continuity of learning: To what extent does the schedule minimize instructional gaps when students are absent and allow students to reconnect quickly with classroom learning?
How Do the Scheduling Options Compare?
Each scheduling model offers different strengths and tradeoffs. Our evaluation found:
5×5 A/B: Provides the greatest elective opportunities and good teacher preparation time, but offers less frequent instruction, requires students to manage more courses, and creates larger overall teacher student loads.
7-Period Daily: Provides daily instruction, shorter class periods, stronger continuity when students are absent, and fewer courses for students and teachers to manage. Tradeoffs include fewer elective opportunities and less daily teacher preparation time.
4×4 A/B: Provides longer class periods, potentially strong opportunities for intervention within class, and substantial teacher preparation time. However, courses still meet every other day, creating greater gaps between instructional sessions.
6-Period Daily: Provides daily instruction, fewer courses for students to manage, lower teacher student loads, and strong opportunities for teacher-student relationships. Its primary tradeoff is providing the fewest elective opportunities.
There is no scheduling model that performs best in every area.
Alignment With District Academic Priorities
Another important consideration is Provo City School District's Strategic Plan. Priority 1 focuses on increasing academic achievement, including a goal of increasing the percentage of students achieving proficiency in mathematics, language arts, and science by 15% within five academic years.
Because the master schedule determines how frequently students attend classes and how much instructional time teachers have available, we believe the schedule should be evaluated as an important component of our efforts to strengthen academic achievement and support our collective district goals.
What Happens Next?
Throughout September and October, Centennial will continue discussing the schedule evaluation with stakeholder groups, including educators, parents, school leadership groups, and Provo City School District.
We especially want stakeholders to consider questions:
What do we value most in a schoolwide schedule?
What important considerations might we be missing?
If the evaluation ultimately results in a recommendation to change Centennial's schedule, a proposed schedule would be presented to the Provo City School District Board of Education for consideration before implementation in the 2027–2028 school year.
Our goal throughout this process remains simple: to identify the school schedule that will best support student and educator success.
Questions, perspectives, and feedback are welcome and can be shared with Principal Dr. Sean Edwards at seane@provo.edu:
Email Principal Dr. Sean Edwards
