Can you name the West Seattle school with these achievements among Seattle high schools?

1. The highest increase in Washington Assessment of Student Learning scores over the past seven years.

2. The highest rate of attendance.

3. The third highest percentage of new students choosing it as their first option.

4. Overwhelmingly positive school climate survey responses by students.

5. Over $300,000 in scholarships awarded to graduating seniors.

Inexplicably, West Seattle High School has been the target of a small but vocal group of parents opposed to a scheduling innovation - the four-period day. Here is why this effort is so misguided.

Over 40 percent of all United States high schools have moved away from the traditional six or seven period day to allow for larger blocks of class time. This change has been fueled by a transformation in teaching - from lectures, worksheets and quizzes to project based learning.

In today's global economy, the most important abilities are problem solving whether it be repairing an automobile or designing a public relations campaign. Typically our classes will throw groups of students into the middle of a real-world problem and seeing if they can come up with solutions.

For example, my colleague Laura Sugden teaches a science unit in which she enacts a CSI-style "murder" in her classroom that students must solve using DNA analysis of hair samples. Marketing Instructor Martha Tonkin challenges her students to design original products in teams, and design marketing campaigns using web, TV, radio and print media, and then present their campaigns to panels of industry professionals.

Setting up lessons like these requires enormous preparation time, but produces students totally engrossed in work we could not have imagined 20 years ago. The key to their success is having extended blocks of time. The universal demand of teachers doing project-based education is "Give us more time."

A lecture based education benefits from short class periods. As much as I love the sound of my own voice, the educational research is clear - students score higher on achievement tests when they have longer periods for project based learning.

Schools have responded with a variety of answers. Some have gone to the four-period day, some to a five-period day. Others have gone to "hybrid" or "flexible" schedules that alternate classes day by day. Garfield and Nathan Hale, for example, have students taking six classes, but two days a week students attend just three classes that last 110 minutes apiece. There are many solutions, but few involve going back to a standardized 55-minute period.

The second obstacle is that a six-period day would mean downsizing a school that is already small. Granting teachers longer prep times has had the side benefit of freeing up classrooms for additional teachers. Our calculations show that at full capacity we would lose up to five teachers in a six period schedule.

Two years ago our school faced a projected loss of 2.7 teachers and these were the proposed cuts: music (.5), art (.5), advanced drama, journalism, speech, video production and yearbook. There are strong pressures today to eliminate programs that are not directly related to passing the WASL. The demands of our vocal parents group plays into that agenda. Not only would they undermine the long-term viability of these electives, they would also spell the end of innovative programs like our Environmental Science Academy.

This group of parents has responded that they are willing to give up programs like Music, Drama and the science academy. What this ignores is that programs like the Environmental Science Academy are the models of the small learning communities we envision for our school in the future. If you were one of the hundreds of parents who attended the performances of our spring musical "Carousel," you know that as a community we have "voted" overwhelmingly against changes that would endanger proven elective programs.

This is why not only teachers and administrators, but the majority of parents on the schedule committee oppose a return to the six period day. None of us are married to a four-period day. There are many options to look at. We just want a schedule that will provide continuity in core subjects, foster in depth educational projects and not decimate our vital elective programs. That's it.

The West Seattle community and PTSA have a wonderful reputation that has helped attract quality teachers. But if one small group of parents is allowed to impose its views through political means, all that could be undermined. Whatever reforms we make in the future, it is essential that it be the product of dialogue and respect between all parties.

Parents, we need your support.

Grytting is a staff representative on the West Seattle High School Steering Committee and may be reached at West Seattle High School, 252.8851.