Northridge Preparatory School
At Northridge Preparatory School, headmaster Niall Fagan has created a schedule that’s unique, compared to what school looks like for the boys who attend grades 6-12 at the Catholic prep school in Niles, Ill.
Before spring break, students were given homework, and that was that. Since then, Niles and his teachers and administrators have set up a program that they will tweak as needed.
Coming back from spring break on March 23, students will attend three classes each morning, starting at 8:15 a.m., and teachers will be available for office hours in the afternoons, Fagan told Amy Jacobson and Dan Proft, in an segment on the duo’s radio show. Classes will be recorded, and students will also be recorded through the Zoom app.
Niall Fagan
The school has invested in webcams for each teacher and Zoom accounts and will use those tools to ensure that students get the education they need during an unusual time.
“It’s an experiment,” said Fagan. “You can’t take kids who aren’t used to home school and give them a bunch of unstructured free time. You have to ease people in.”
There are bound to be issues that come up, though. One of those is that the school has what he calls a “pretty anti-technology stance,” and putting kids in front of screens for an extended period moves away from that. But classes will operate and be designed based on subject area. Many can use the Khan academy curriculum and meet as a class oner to two times per week, but for classes like humanities, Fagan said that those may need more time for lecture and discussion, so they’ll look different than other classes.
“In all cases, we have to do more student-led work. This is a great time for creative projects that teachers would like to do, but don’t usually have time for,” Fagan said.
