by Ariel Gilreath, The Hechinger Report
January 13, 2026
BATON ROUGE, La. — About two dozen second graders sat on the carpet on the entrance of Jacquelyn Anthony’s classroom, reviewing easy methods to make tens. “Two wants eight!” the scholars yelled out collectively. “Six wants 4!”
“The numbers could get just a little trickier,” Anthony informed them subsequent. “However bear in mind, the numbers we have to make 10 are nonetheless there.” The scholars then turned confidently to greater calculations: Forty-six wants 4 ones to make a brand new quantity divisible by 10; 128 wants two to make 13 tens.
On the finish of the hour, the second graders slung on their backpacks, gathered their Chromebooks and lined up on the door earlier than heading to English and social research class throughout the corridor. Whereas most colleges wait till center college to transition college students from one class to a different, youngsters at Louisiana’s Baton Rouge Middle for Visible and Performing Arts achieve this beginning at age 6 or 7. It’s a part of a method referred to as departmentalizing, or platooning.
Anthony, slightly than instructing all 4 core topics, focuses on math. The varsity’s new facility, in-built 2025, was designed with departmentalizing in thoughts: The lecture rooms have enormous glass home windows, so academics can see their subsequent class making ready to line up within the hallway.
“Educating in the present day is so totally different than it was a very long time in the past, and there are such a lot of calls for on them. And the demand to be an skilled in your content material space may be very excessive,” mentioned Sydney Hebert, magnet web site coordinator for the art-focused public college within the East Baton Rouge Parish college district. “We need to ensure that our academics are consultants in what they’re instructing in order that they will do an excellent job of instructing it to the youngsters.”
As colleges take care of a decades-long hunch in math scores — exacerbated by the pandemic — some are turning to this classroom technique even for very younger college students. In recent times, extra elementary colleges have opted to departmentalize some grade ranges in an try to spice up educational achievement. The share of fourth and fifth grade lecture rooms working on this schedule has doubled because the 12 months 2000, from 15 p.c to 30 p.c in 2021. Usually, which means educators will focus on one or two topics at most, equivalent to fourth grade English language arts and social research, or fifth grade math and science. The speculation is that academics who specialize will probably be extra aware of the content material and higher capable of train it.
That could be significantly vital for math: Research have proven that some early elementary college academics expertise nervousness concerning the topic and query their potential to show it. Educators additionally say that the curriculum and requirements for math and English within the early grades are altering quickly in some districts and have turn out to be extra sophisticated over time. In a departmentalized setup, it’s additionally far much less possible that math instruction will get shortchanged by an educator who prefers spending time on different topics.
Associated: So much goes on in lecture rooms from kindergarten to highschool. Sustain with our free weekly e-newsletter on Okay-12 schooling.
However whereas some colleges swear by this mannequin, the analysis on it’s blended.
One distinguished 2018 examine on the observe in Houston public colleges discovered it had a unfavorable impact on take a look at scores, conduct and attendance. The examine doesn’t clarify why that was the case, however the researcher mentioned it may very well be as a result of academics on this schedule spend much less time with particular person college students.
One other examine revealed in 2024 analyzing Massachusetts colleges had totally different outcomes: Researchers discovered average beneficial properties in educational achievement for ELA and a big enhance to science scores for college students in departmentalized courses. The ends in math, nevertheless, confirmed few beneficial properties.
Typically, academics specialize within the topic they’re most snug instructing. When a college departmentalizes for the primary time, principals sometimes have a look at every educator’s take a look at rating information over time to find out whether or not they need to focus on math or studying.
“There are some arguments that, a minimum of if it’s somebody who likes the topic, who’s passionate concerning the topic, you may have a larger probability of them doing a greater job of delivering instruction,” mentioned Latrenda Knighten, president of the Nationwide Council of Academics of Arithmetic. “However you’ll discover blended opinions.”
But there are just a few explanation why the technique is often reserved for college students in older grades, based on college leaders: Spending all day with one instructor will increase the bond between the instructor and pupil, which is vital for youthful youngsters. In Baton Rouge, Anthony teaches 50 college students all through the day as a substitute of the identical 25 college students all day.
“Academics need to get to know their college students,” mentioned Dennis Willingham, superintendent of Walker County Faculties in Alabama. The district departmentalized some fifth grade lecture rooms many years in the past, however lately added third and fourth grade courses on this schedule. “You are likely to see much less departmentalization beneath third grade due to the nurturing component.”
It’s additionally usually more difficult for younger college students to rapidly change lecture rooms, even for electives, which implies misplaced educational time. Smaller elementary colleges may battle to rent sufficient academics to schedule all of them on a departmentalized setup.
Associated: These college districts are bucking the nationwide math hunch
However more and more, colleges which might be glad with this strategy for older grade ranges try it out with their youthful grades, too.
After the pandemic, the San Tan Heights Elementary College in Arizona modified its curriculum to at least one that was extra rigorous, and it grew to become tougher for the third grade educators to grasp the requirements of all 4 topic areas, mentioned Henry Saylor-Scheetz, principal on the time.
He proposed that third graders be taught by separate math, English language arts and studying academics. “I informed them, let’s strive it for a semester. If it doesn’t work on the finish of the 12 months, we’ll return,” Saylor-Scheetz mentioned.
Ten days into the experiment, academics informed him they by no means wished to return to the previous schedule. Within the subsequent years, the varsity added extra lecture rooms on this mannequin till, by 2023, all Okay-8 college students had been departmentalized. For the previous few years, instructor retention on the college was 95 p.c, based on Saylor-Scheetz.
Saylor-Scheetz, who final 12 months grew to become principal of a close-by center college, credited the change for serving to the varsity enhance from a C ranking on its state report card — a ranking it had stagnated at yearly since 2018 — to a B ranking as of 2022. Since then, extra colleges in his Arizona college district have shifted to this schedule.
“I’d like to see this turn out to be one thing we do as a nation, however it’s a paradigm shift,” Saylor-Scheetz mentioned. “There’s benefit in doing it, however there needs to be a dedication to it.”
At Baton Rouge Middle for Visible and Performing Arts, college students in first by third grades have two accomplice academics, one for math and science and one other for ELA and social research. The varsity has been working on this schedule for third by fifth grade college students for greater than a decade. Eight years in the past, its leaders determined to strive it for first and second grade college students, too, and had been happy with the outcomes.
On a December morning on the college, younger college students talked quietly with one another within the corridor as they lined as much as go from math class to English language arts. All informed, the change took lower than 5 minutes. “We’re on the finish of the second 9 weeks, so we’ve had a whole lot of observe,” mentioned GiGi Boudreaux, the assistant principal.
The technique has not all the time been profitable, although.
Through the pandemic, directors additionally tried to departmentalize its kindergarten courses. It didn’t work as they’d hoped: It was a problem to get the 5-year-olds to rapidly change courses and deal with classwork once more as soon as they did. Dad and mom additionally didn’t prefer it. The varsity then tried transferring academics from classroom to classroom as a substitute of transferring college students, however the educators hated it.
“It was an excessive amount of, so we didn’t do it after that,” mentioned Hebert.
The Baton Rouge college doesn’t have comparability information to indicate that college students carry out higher in a departmentalized setup, however most educators within the college choose it, Hebert mentioned. Third grade take a look at scores from 2015 — earlier than the varsity departmentalized its youthful grade ranges — confirmed 73 p.c scored “superior” and “mastery” stage on the state ELA take a look at, and 56 p.c scored superior or mastery on the maths take a look at. In 2025, 80 p.c of third grade college students scored superior or mastery in ELA and 55 p.c in math.
“I do know that the academics prefer it higher, and the youngsters have tailored to it,” Hebert mentioned.
Academics meet weekly with their accomplice academics and grade-level counterparts to debate their courses and progress on the state requirements. As soon as 1 / 4, the entire math academics throughout the grades meet to speak about methods and pupil efficiency.
Associated: Academics conquering their math nervousness
At Deer Valley Unified College District in Arizona, departmentalizing some lecture rooms has helped cut back instructor turnover, mentioned Superintendent Curtis Finch, significantly for early profession educators, who can discover it difficult to grasp the content material and requirements of all 4 topics.
“Should you’re not assured in your topic, then you definitely don’t have good examples off the highest of your head. You’ll be able to’t management the room, can’t pull the scholars in,” Finch mentioned.
There are drawbacks although, Finch acknowledged. In a self-contained classroom, academics can extra simply combine their totally different classes, so {that a} math lesson would possibly refer again to a subject coated in studying.
And regardless that Anthony, the second grade math and science instructor in Baton Rouge, loves instructing math, she additionally misses the additional time she might spend with every pupil when she had the identical 25 youngsters in her class all day for your entire college 12 months.
“It was a pleasure for me to be self-contained and to construct that little household,” Anthony mentioned. “I feel the social emotional wants of scholars are finest met in that kind of surroundings. However being solely a math instructor, I do get to only dig in and deal with the nuance of the content material.”
For Anthony’s accomplice instructor throughout the corridor, Holley McArthur, instructing 50 college students ELA and social research is less complicated than having to show 25 college students math.
“That is my factor: studying books, comprehending and discovering solutions, assembly their targets,” mentioned McArthur, who has taught in each sorts of lecture rooms over three many years in schooling.
Whereas McArthur’s youngsters had been at recess this mid-December day, the veteran instructor was grading their studying worksheets. A brand new pupil had transferred in from out of state midyear, and she or he was nonetheless evaluating his studying abilities.
“I feel you continue to get to know the youngsters, even when you simply have them for 3 hours a day, as a result of I’m not doing the onerous math with them.”
Contact workers author Ariel Gilreath on Sign at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org.
This story about departmentalizing was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, impartial information group centered on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join the Hechinger e-newsletter.
This <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/the-schools-where-even-young-children-change-classes/”>article</a> first appeared on <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished right here underneath a <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Artistic Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Worldwide License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?match=150percent2C150&ssl=1″ fashion=”width:1em;top:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&put up=114257&ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” fashion=”width:1px;top:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: perform() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/the-schools-where-even-young-children-change-classes/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>
