By Sarah Ostergaard
The October 6, 2025 school board meeting attempted to clear up miscommunications and misperceptions. At that board meeting, there was a presentation about the possibility of a high school 4×4 scheduling option. Whether a full school schedule change or a change for some students within a school, switching to a 4×4 is a big change happening not only in LexRich5 but across the state.
Let’s back up.
Much of this discussion seems based around improving the elusive high-enough graduation rate. Why? It is an important metric on the annual school report card and a significant data point on a high school principal’s professional evaluation. School policies are constantly assessed and tweaked based on their impact on this number. Whether the graduation rate proves a school’s graduates are prepared for their next steps is an article for another day. But beyond skepticism of overemphasis on this one data point in evaluating a school’s success, we do want students to progress and learn and pass their courses and graduate.
Let’s back up more. To progress from 9th to 10th grade, and so on, a student must pass or exceed grade-level English, Math and enough courses to earn sufficient credits to achieve the status of 10th grade. Thus, a student in his/her second year of high school may or may not officially, on paper, be a 10th grader, depending on the type and number of courses passed. If 9th grade English is not passed, for example, the second-year high school student retakes the course. Advance that forward, and this student is not on track to graduate on time and this retention reflects poorly on a school’s graduation rate. It also indicates that perhaps this student has an undiagnosed learning disability, needs glasses, needs academic support, missed too much school, has trouble at home, must work to keep the household’s lights on, or any number of reasons. Those reasons are much more difficult to diagnose and solve through school policies but since these reasons impact the graduation rate, school leaders focus on and attempt to fix this rate.
In high schools across SC, courses provide either a half or one credit toward the 24 credits needed for graduation. Generally in LexRich5, half credit courses meet every other day for one semester and one credit courses meet every other day for two semesters. This is called an A/B schedule; four courses meet every other day; a student takes four courses on A Days and different four courses on B Days.
There has been some conversation, and a board presentation on October 6, about some schools, or some segments of students, or some of something, switching to a 4×4 schedule. The idea has been floating around since at least the 1990s in academic literature. Anecdotally, it seems that many high schools in the Midlands use the A/B schedule and others around the state, e.g., Horry, use the 4×4 schedule. For teachers of Economics and other holf credit courses, the 4×4 schedule means that the course meets for around 90 minutes every day for nine weeks. For teachers of English, Math, and other one credit courses, this means that the course meets for around 90 minutes every day for 18 weeks (one semester). In a 4×4 schedule, students take four courses in the Fall semester and four different courses in the Spring semester.
There are both pros and cons to each type of schedule. The main rationale is usually to benefit struggling students: students can immediately repeat a failed course, more easily remain with their classmates, and graduate on time. They do not have to wait the whole year to retake the course; it can be retaken the next semester and the student remains, on paper, on track to graduate on time.
Common concerns about the 4×4 schedule include course progression and content retention. If a student takes Spanish 1 in the fall semester, how does scheduling Spanish 2 a whole year or more later impact learning? AP/IB testing is offered every May; would schools offer review sessions to help students prepare? If schools and students have different schedules, how does that impact career courses at The Center? Is it difficult to catch up in a 4×4 course if a student misses a week sick with the flu?
That said, there are many SC schools that successfully implement a 4×4 schedule and many that successfully implement an A/B schedule. There are so many factors influencing a school’s graduation rate and student success. Do some reading into the A/B vs. 4×4 scheduling implications, talk with students and teachers, and engage your school board.
