(WSBT) Many Indiana students and teachers are heading back to class this week, but one local school started last week. Rochester is trying something called a balanced calendar this year — going back a week earlier in the fall and staying longer in the spring — but they're also getting six weeks of break during the year.

For every nine weeks Rochester students spend in the classroom, they get two weeks off. One problem they're trying to address — a third of high schoolers in Fulton County don't graduate. Rochester's superintendent says teachers and students are overwhelmingly in favor of the change.

Zech Weese, a freshman at Rochester High School said he was tired of laying around the house all day.

Now he's going to class on a balanced calendar. He says the best part of that is the break he'll get when all other school districts are in session.

"You've only got nine weeks and if you're passing your classes you get two weeks off."

But if Rochester students aren't making the grade, they'll have to stay.

"We're going to try to help the students either raise their grades or be passing when the next nine weeks starts," RHS Principal Dan Ronk told WSBT.

But with every new idea, there are also concerns. One of those: How can the district force some students to come to class when everyone else is on break?

Ronk said that's where the balanced calendar gets a little tricky. School administrators are in the process of putting together a policy that would make it mandatory for failing students to go to the intercession classes in order to get class credit.

"The athletic teams start and do two-a-day practices," Ronk said. "Coaches were great and worked that out. The state fair was an issue because we have several students that participate in it, but we allow them to do that without having any kind of penalty."

The schedule also impacts game schedules and the marching band.

"We have a football game and it's the last one of the year; but some of us can't go because we'll be on vacation in the middle of our two week break," RHS freshman Heather Newcomer said.

"Change is always scary for anybody," Dr. Debra Howe, Rochester's Superintendent, told WSBT. "But we've spent a year studying, a year planning and there's a lot of research behind those initiatives."

Some sports like girls basketball will benefit. Tony Stestiak coaches the girls basketball team and teaches at Rochester High School.

"From the coaching standpoint it's going to work out nice because our first official day of practice is the Monday we come back from the first break," he said.

That break is creating new possibilities for everyone. Freshman Heather Newcomer and her parents already planned a vacation for the two week break in October. Teachers like Tony Stestiak say they'll appreciate the two week break to re-charge their batteries and evaluate the first part of the year.

Rochester schools will still have an eight week summer break, and they'll still have summer school during that time. School calendars are already revised to fit the balanced calendar through 2010. Rochester school administrators studied balanced calendar schools in southern Indiana and Kentucky for a year before making their decision.