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Dr. Luizzi said that he agrees with John Speary, the former women's golf coach at the University of New Mexico, that the human mind is not conditioned to do things for long periods of time and that classes should be taught in segments that include student activities.
"When the teacher is just lecturing, when you go past a certain time period you see students' attention fading," he said in a recent interview.
The late Jack Valenti, the former longtime president of the Motion Picture Association of America, wrote in his 1982 book, "Speak Up With Confidence," that a speech to a civic group should be 18 minutes or less, partly because of the public's limited attention span.
Then Brookfield Board of Education Chairman Jerry Friedrich said during a presentation at one of the annual teacher recognition receptions that a PowerPoint slide show should be no longer than 10 frames and last no longer than 20 minutes.
"It's not a block of 83 minutes," Dr. Luizzi said of the block scheduling. "You divide it up into the 20-minute chunks so that students are actively engaged, and you use labs and discussion groups so that they apply their knowledge, problem solve and engage in collaborative way."
He said that teachers have been preparing for the changes by attending staff development workshops and visiting schools that already use the block scheduling, in which a subject is taught every other day rather than on a daily basis with the shorter periods.
Dr. Luizzi, a 1989 graduate of BHS and the principal of the school since 2006, said that students at schools utilizing block scheduling have said "they would never go back to the traditional schedule."
"It slows down the day for students," he said. "Under the traditional schedule, they come into school and get on the treadmill at 7:15 and they don't stop until eight periods have been completed."
Dr. Luizzi said that, among other things, the block scheduling would allow for more instruction time, since there would only be four major transitions between classes during the day instead of eight transitions.
He said it also would allow for students to have more time in physical education and prepare for the state's 10th-grade fitness test.
Dr. Luizzi said that under the traditional class system students had little time to warm up for the activities and there was scant time for instruction since they needed to change clothing at the beginning and the end of class.
The principal acknowledged that students will have to be better organized since they won't, for example, be having an English class every day, and some might be tempted to procrastinate about addressing homework since there will be a longer time frame between class meetings.
To address that issue, Dr. Luizzi said that instead of printing a hard copy of the program of studies for each of the students BHS saved money by just posting it on its Web site.
He said that money that had been appropriated for the printing would be used to provide each student with a daily planner to keep track of his or her projects and that instructors would ask students regularly to note the upcoming projects in those planners.
"We want to teach students to be organized," Dr. Luizzi said, noting that the block scheduling is one of several steps that the school is taking to be in alignment with the goals for 21st-century learning that are being discussed as part of the state Department of Education's high school reform proposal.
BHS was ranked as the 32nd best high school in the state last year by Connecticut magazine.
Dr. Luizzi said the school, which had less than 800 students in the mid-1990s, will probably at least come close to an enrollment of 1,100 when the academic year begins.
The renovation of the building, which was first publicly discussed in June 2000, is virtually complete and that only a small number of punch list items that are now being addressed.
Construction of the $31.875 million renovation began in April 2006 and included new science labs, classroom space, two synthetic athletic fields and an update for the existing building to make it conform to current building codes.
However, Dr. Luizzi said that, with a steadily growing enrollment, budget constraints have forced increases in class sizes.
The school district is operating during the current fiscal year on less money than it received for the fiscal year that ended last June.
On another topic, Dr. Luizzi said that Brookfield, as is the case in other school districts, continues to face obstacles in some instances in finding coaches.
Over the last generation, a higher percentage of coaches are non-educators.
In the more recent years, the state has required that even volunteer coaches must complete the First Aid and CPR certifications, as well 15 hours of continuing education units every five years.
Dr. Luizzi said that, although most coaches don't enter the field because of salaries, Brookfield may have to consider increasing the pay for its coaches in the near future.
"We may lose coaches who will go to another district where they pay more money to do the same thing," he said.
Dr. Luizzi praised the work of Chris McDougal, the school's athletic coordinator, who took over that position a year ago after it had been downgraded, due to budget restrictions, from being an athletic director.
The principal noted that under Mr. McDougal, who was briefly an interim assistant principal at the school three years ago, BHS captured two state championships during the last academic year and in the spring season all of its teams qualified for the state tournaments.
On a separate subject, Joe Palumbo, a Brookfield resident who had been an assistant principal at Westhill High School in Stamford, has succeeded William Egan as an assistant principal at BHS.
Mr. Egan recently became the principal at Wamogo High School in Region 6, which includes the towns of Warren, Morris and Goshen.
Dr. Luizzi said that Mr. Palumbo formerly served as an assistant football coach at BHS and "has a passion" for working with students.
BHS has had two assistant principals since 2004.
