In the 2025-2026 school year, the Salida High School is planning on changing the arrangement of the class schedule to a modified A and B block schedule. The proposed schedule consists of having around eight total classes throughout the entire year.

Dawn Catalano, a counselor at Salida High School, explained that next year on Mondays and Wednesdays, students will have four block classes and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, students will have a second configuration of four classes, with the same classes throughout the whole year. 

“Some of the reasons [for the proposed schedule changes] are more consistent engagement, meaning you would have math all year instead of just a semester, and then a semester off, so that hopefully the retention is there for students to really kind of remember more of what they are learning and not have as many breaks in between classes,” stated Catalano.

In addition to increased retention of information, one of the main reasons that Salida High School has chosen to initiate the change in schedule is because classes will align better with Colorado Mountain College. A lot of CMC classes meet twice a week, which currently prohibits students from taking other classes on the opposite days of the week. With the new schedule, students have the opportunity to take classes from CMC while taking classes at the High School on different days of the week. 

“With this new schedule they [students] could choose a class during that same time frame on Tuesday and Thursday that could be a high school class, or it could be a CMC class, you know. There is just more flexibility that way and we are excited to have that,” explained Catalano.

The current semester schedule includes skinny classes, but next year those classes will be full blocks which will eliminate the stress of fitting a class’s work into the allotted class time. 

“There was a team of like, teachers and administrators that looked at a million different schedule options and this was the one that seemed like it would work best for us given all of those other factors,” says Catalano. 

A big adjustment that the Students of SHS will face is having core classes all year long, changing most students’ homework schedules. With the addition of having classes year long every other day of the week, SHS hopes that students’ relationship with teachers improve. Although this is a positive, it could also be a challenge for teachers to adjust from meeting with kids four days a week to just seeing their students two days a week for the whole year.  

“The biggest adjustment I think will be for students to have all of their classes at one time,” says Catalano. 

SHS staff wanted to get feedback from a multitude of different people in order to make a decision for the schedule that would be beneficial for all. Students, teachers, and parents all got the opportunity to be involved in the decision making process for the new schedule changes. Students and parents received a survey in order to be given the opportunity to talk about concerns or feedback about the proposed schedule for the upcoming year. Teachers were also offered to be in the committee to make the decision about what SHS might want to do with the schedule. Most of the decision making was held at the school accountability meetings, which are open to anyone who wants a voice or has an opinion. 

“I have not heard anyone say they did not like the idea of the change, um, it will be an adjustment for all of us but I think it will kind of be exciting, ” states Catalano.

“With the new schedule we shouldn’t have that [not being able to take block high school classes] during a block problem. There should be other classes for you to take since every class is going to be a block and two days a week,” Catalano says.

The new schedule may be a challenge for Salida High School students to adjust to, but will benefit students’ abilities to retain information and grow relationships with students.