Alex Kurial/Local Journalism Initiative

The widely unpopular quadmester system won’t be returning to Lambton County schools next year.

The model, aimed at reducing COVID spread by having kids interact less, had students take one class in the morning and one class in the afternoon for a total of nine weeks. 

But students and parents had become fed up with packing that much curriculum into a shortened time frame, along with the lacking class variety that came with being in the same two classes for more than two months straight. 

So for 2020-21, following input from parents and educators, schools under the Lambton Kent District School Board and St. Clair Catholic District School Board will switch to a ‘modified semester model’.

The classes will still be long, lasting 2.5 hours each. But now there will be four of them spread out over a longer period of time. Under safety guidelines from the Ministry of Education, secondary schools are only allowed to offer two classes per day to reduce mass mixing of students. 

Students will take four classes during an 18 week period. They’ll spend one week in their first and second classes during the morning and afternoon, then switch the next week to their third and fourth classes under the same schedule. 

When the first semester ends students will then take their other four classes in second semester under the same alternating Week 1/Week 2 schedule. 

“This modified semester model will address concerns about the pace and intensity of courses experienced during the current school year in the quadmester model,” says Lambton Kent’s Director of Education John Howitt. “We believe the modified semester model is more supportive of student learning.”

Each of Lambton Kent’s semesters will end with five evaluation days. Students learning in-person and virtually will follow the same model.

“This model is a step towards a more normalized secondary school calendar,” says St. Clair Catholic’s Director of Education Deb Crawford.