SOUTH FORSYTH — Lambert High School will introduce a new alternative class schedule this fall in an effort to increase personalized learning and optimize the time students spend on campus.
Principal Gary Davison presented Lunch and Learn, a format that allows students to flow throughout classrooms during lunch, to the Forsyth County Board of Education during a work session Thursday.
The program is optional. Students will still be able to sit in the cafeteria or courtyard at the school on Nichols Road in south Forsyth.
What will change is there will be certain hallways with tables for students to study while eating in a quieter setting. Or they can go to the math center to meet with a peer about homework for a few minutes before popping into the social studies center.
Davison said students have expressed that they do not have time before or after school to talk to teachers or other students about schoolwork due to high involvement in extracurricular activities. In addition, the school is so large that teachers do not have time to meet with every student individually.
The new layout is still an eight-period schedule on Monday, Tuesday and Friday, with block scheduling on Wednesday and Thursday.
Students will have Lunch and Learn either during period five or six.
Other rooms will include a remediation room, spaces for study groups, peer tutoring, advising and a silent lunch room.
“We assume our kids are going to be good,” Davison said. “And they are.”
There will be closed zones marked by signs that designate off-limits hallways where other classes are being held.
Open zones generally will be the cafeteria, courtyard, outdoor seating area and media center.
A quarter of the staff is not in class at any given point in the day, he said, so they will be on hand to monitor Lunch and Learn.
Teachers will be asked to do no more than three Lunch and Learn days per month, and counselors and administration will also be available during that time.
There will be active duty stations where teachers can monitor students flowing throughout the halls.
“I’m not going to be scheduling meetings during lunch,” Davison said.
He said he visited other schools that run the program, including nearby Northview High School.
Davison also noted teachers and administrators have begun rolling out the idea to students, who seem receptive.
“Not all kids want to eat in a big cafeteria,” he said. “Some want something quieter.”