For those in the student body who have not heard the hushed rumors and muffled whis­pers of teachers, Cookeville High School will have a different sched­ule next school year.

Due to the new state guidelines which require students to receive more cred­its within the four years of high school, there is no room for fail­ure, therefore students need more opportunities to receive credits that our current schedule does not accommodate.

Discussions about the setup of the new schedule have been taking place for over a year, but by the end of November, the planning of the new schedule was kicked into high gear.

I sat down with Mr. Meihls to get the inside information on the possible schedules for next year. Mr. Meihls stated that the school has three schedule options. The first is to have seven periods a day that are each about forty-eight minutes long.

The second is an “A” and “B” rotating schedule, in which there would be four blocks everyday, but there is an “A” set and a “B” set of the four blocks. With this schedule, a student would have eight classes. Each class would meet five times over a two week period because the “A” set rotates with the “B” set every other day.

The third option is a hybrid schedule. In the hybrid schedule, there are seven periods in a day, but certain classes can be blocked. Classes such as AP or IB will be blocked, which means a student will have that class for two periods instead of one.

The single period classes will meet everyday, but if a student has a blocked class it will meet every other day and rotate with another blocked class. The rotation of blocked classes will not occur on Fridays, instead every class the student has will meet for one period.

Mr. Meihls stated that, “the main goal [of the new schedule] is to be able to offer more credit opportunities over the four years.” Mr. Meihls told me that CHS is taking its time to make this de­cision and not rushing because it is tough to change the school culture in such a large way, espe­cially since CHS has such a large student body. Since it is a hard decision, every department and all the teachers are giving their inputs and are being carefully listened to.

CHS is going to model its new schedule after Collierville High School in Memphis, which has a student body of about 1,900. Mr. Meihls said that CHS wants, “to look back in five years and know that we made a good decision; that CHS is better off.”

It is undecided as to which schedule will be cho­sen, but the new schedule is going to be the one that helps the student body as a whole.