After two half days on Tuesday and Wednesday, the week ends with a short break on Thursday and Friday. Yet some students and faculty members will still be spending their days off at Westside High School.

Intersession, the week described above, takes place each year in the fall and the spring. In the fall, it is held at the end of the first quarter and in the spring at the end of the third. It is a time when parent teacher conferences occur and is used by many families of the district as a small fall break to take vacations or visit colleges.

During this year’s fall intersession, students will have the ability to get caught up in classes that are offered if needed. Those offerings consist of all business courses, Spanish One, Chemistry Honors, all social studies courses, Arch Welding and Physics.

While this may seem like a large number of courses that students have the ability to get caught up in, compared to previous years it is not. According to Westside High School Administrator, Dr. Jeff Wagner, for the past few years, the amount of classes has been about the same, but in previous years more have been offered.

The program, which has been going on for about 15 years, is an opportunity in which students can take advantage of their time off to make up time in school that they have missed. However, there are other alternatives that students have to not have to attend intersession.

“We’ve really made a push, or an emphasis, to try and do things throughout the semester, not just in a one to two day snap shot,” said Wagner. “It should actually be more beneficial for students with some of the things that we have. We’ve done some of the physics help-sessions on Wednesdays and Saturdays, some different call back things for art one night, bootcamps in social studies and there are callbacks now that are assigned to world language and English as part of students’ schedules.”

With the way that Westside High School’s modular scheduling system runs, students have more chances during their school day to get caught up before the quarter is over. Students who are falling behind should use intersession to their advantage if they can not be assigned to teachers during the school day. Yet, it still may not be the most beneficial way for students to get caught up on work they missed.

Each session for intersession is 90 minutes long. Each session has a different cost. In order to take part in these blocks of time during intersession, students are charged specific costs, that differ depending on the class, but that serve a specific purpose.

The money goes back to the district to pay the teachers for the extra time,” said Wagner. “We actually probably loose money finacially as a district because of intersession because the teachers get a certain pay per hour. Typically to make the payment you would have to have more than six to eight kids per block of time to make up for that teacher’s salary.”

Some blocks of time for certain courses, such as phsyics and chemistry will be filled with multiple students, close to the the maximum amount of students per block of 15.  Others may not be filled at all.

Students are not required to attend intersession if they are falling far behind in their course work, but it is strongly suggested.

“It’s kind of one of those things where honestly, if the student would be disciplined enough to set aside time each day or each time they have a break or a weekend, they wouldn’t need intersession,” said Wagner.  “But it’s one of those tools that helps some kids or some wait for intersession because they feel that they will be able to get more work done.”