Schedules

Sample schedules allowing for collaboration and growth during the school day

“Our building has common plans for all content areas (so, for example, all science teachers have 3^rd hour plan) then we have a common team plan (all 7^th grade teachers 4^th hour) which is used for a variety of housekeeping topics. Departments also meet bi-monthly during our academic extension hour (the last hour of the day, similar to home room).”

• Meg Richard, Summit Trail Middle School

“Our school has half day fridays every friday. Students are dismissed at 12. Teachers then have time Fridays for various things. First Friday of the month is Teacher Time; Second Friday is PBIS,SIT,MTSS, meetings; Third Friday is PD; and the 4th Friday is PLC. It is amazing. Plus, students can stay for tutoring if needed and we have the buses run again to accommodate those that do.”

• Kimberly Mawhiney, Currituck County High School

“In Baltimore City Schools, the first Wednesday of the month is an early release day for students. Faculties, content teams, and or grade level teams meet for collaboration or PD. Additionally in my school (and previous school) the master schedule was made so that content teams have common planning times to be used for collaboration or PD. This is also the schedule used at my daughter’s elementary school in the same district. The grade level teams meet for collaboration or PD at least once a week when the students are at their specials (computer science, phys ed, art, music, or library).”

• Jen Smith, Western High School

“My high school has Delayed Start Mondays. The students report to school 1 hour later than normal every Monday. The busses followed the same schedule, so there were a good deal of students there in the morning, so we had student activities planned into our schedule sometimes. We were on a 3 week rotations: Monday 1: PLC; Monday 2: Common planning (among teachers that taught the same subject); Monday 3: student activity/host students in your room. I liked the delayed schedule. It also gave us a chance to pull students in during the morning to get extra help/complete assignments. We also ran a freshman orientation program during that time as well.”

• Tiffany Lewis, Middletown Area High School

“We have common planning time (at the team level, so our 9th grade team) for the first period of the day every day. It lasts about 45 minutes. We also share a lunch/advisory period of another 45 minutes that we can use for collaboration or grouping students for interventions. We also have flexible scheduling with our students, so if we're doing a PBL and need the kids for a double period, we can move classes around, combine them, or skip them as needed. We only have 67 high school students and a limited offering of classes, however, so I think that helps in being able to move things around on the fly. Usually during 1st period, our kids either have study hall or an elective class (Spanish or Robot Programming). That gives us core teachers time to collaborate and plan. The elective teachers in my school teach multiple grade levels since our building is grades 3-9 currently.”

• Sarah Rivera, Willoughby-Eastlake City School of Innovation

“In Barrington 220 all the elementary teachers have an early release (2:10 versus 2:40) every Wednesday with staff meeting/PD time from 2:20-3:30. Each school also has grade level meeting time during the day as one planning time and a second planning time as individuals.”

• Becky McDowell, Former Barrington 220 School District Teacher

“While we do not have collaborative time built into our regular school days here, we do have occasional collaborative time during our late arrival Wednesdays, especially when working through our teacher evaluation work.“

• Doug Hodum, Mt. Blue High School

“My district has a 2 hour early release every Friday for PLC collaboration.”

• Denise Thompson, Orting High School

"Our school runs an A/B Block Schedule. Students take 4 classes each day and the entire student body breaks for lunch (Unit Lunch) at the same time (1700 students). During Unit Lunch, faculty meet in collaborative learning teams (CLT) 4 out of 5 days. The CLT time is separate from teacher prep and faculty lunch. It is time strictly devoted to coordinating curricula and creating common assessments. Faculty enjoy the opportunity to work together, uninterrupted, and students love the fact that they always have 50 minutes each day to eat and socialize with friends. When we changed the schedule, many thought the Unit Lunch would be chaos, but it is in fact the opposite. Students settle into routines and spaces quickly and as an added benefit class-cuts are down because friends always have the same lunch period."

Paul Popadiuk, Montgomery High School

“Our site has created many layers for teacher collaboration, here is what we have created.

Late Start Friday Meetings

We have a Late Start Friday Model (Students arrive later, Teachers arrive earlier) with a 50 min meeting to start the day.

• Week 1 - Whole Group (School Meeting with Admin)

• Week 2 - Techie Friday (Technology mini sessions focused on SAMR/Schoolwide instructional strategies/tools - Teacher led and developed)

• Week 3 - TEAMS (Cross-curricular teams that focus on student study teams - how we intervene with our most needy students, develop strategies to regulate behavior and help the student academically succeed and set up appointments to meet with parents)

• Week 4 - Departments - (Meeting with Subject alike peers to develop and reflect and update lessons, calibrate on scoring, and pedagogy development) plan-do-check-revamp

• Week 5 - Departments - (Meeting with Subject alike peers becomes an extension of the previous week and often have follow-ups and debriefs of lesson implementation) plan-do-check-revamp

Grade alike - Subject alike have a shared planning period

On our master schedule we tried to ensure that our grade alike and subject alike teachers had the same planning period to encourage collaboration of lessons. This had led to school-wide instructional initiatives - we take the narrow and deep focus, rather an many strategies and inconsistent application.

We optimize counselor days - STPT

Our district has required counselor instruction days - in which they must present Anti-tobacco, College Requirements, High School Scheduling, etc. On those days we try to ensure that all the teachers from the same grade level and subject have those lessons scheduled in their classes. For example, 8th grade Sci has those lessons taught in their classroom - they are released to continue their work on NGSS standards while the counselors are teaching their lessons in the teachers classrooms. We have limited access to sub release days.

Professional Development Days - Part of the Academic School year.

We have 6 PD days that are included in the Academic Calendar 3 days are District level initiatives and training. 3 are Site based needs training and PLCs.

Moving towards a Peer Eval Program

Teachers can opt to evaluated by fellow teachers using the teacher standards of practice framework California Dept of Ed. It is rubric based and growth focus - still a pilot so I can't speak to its effectiveness. “

• Abigail Ramirez, Simons Middle School

“At our school (only one class per grade), we ensure that grade level PLCs (PreK-2, 3-5, 6-8) have at least one common planning period a week and one meeting a month is scheduled after school. As STEM coordinator, I have a set weekly planning time with each teacher to provide assistance, support, and resources for their STEM lessons/projects.”

• Tracey Tokarski, St. Joan of Arc School

“In the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District in Santa Maria, California, we have science PLC meetings every Monday after school. It's an early release so we have about 1.5 hours to work as a collaborative team. My colleague and I planned an Environmental Resources Pathway at our school so we also have the same prep period so we can work/plan together.”

• Laura Branch, Ernest Righetti High School

“At High Tech High Wednesday's are half-days so staff gets 3 hours of built-in professional development time. We also alternate weeks between whole-staff professional development and "team time" in which grade-level teams get time to collaborate as they see fit.”

• Riley Meehan, High Tech High

“Fruita Middle School in western Colorado has been using a collaborative model for 10 years. We are only a 6th and 7th grade, but we have 650 kids! Although, at times, collaborating is grueling, frustrating work we have decided it is what's best for our students. Many years ago, before I arrived at FMS, it was negotiated that all secondary teachers receive a 90 minutes DAILY of planning time broken into 2 forty-five minute periods with 60 minute classes. As mentioned above 10 years ago the structure stayed the same, but our responsibilities changed. Our first morning "Plans" are now turned into Collaborative Team (referred to as CT) time. We meet as a content on Tuesdays and Thursdays, We have Grade Level on Fridays, cores on Mondays, and a Radar meeting (talking about kids who we are concerned about) on Wednesdays. We adopted the Dufour PLC method and it is in these meetings that we define norms/goals and we use these four guiding questions:

• What do we want all students to know and be able to do with rigor?

• How will we know if they learn it?

• How will we respond when some students do not learn?

• How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?

The other 45 minute plan is geared for our personal plan time (although our Special Education IEP's consume a lot of this time too). We also have a scheduled 35 minutes a day (Advisory). Tuesday and Thursdays are Academic while Monday and Wednesday are dedicated to Social Emotional Learning. Fridays are free day. Our day is consumed, but again, it is what’s best for our students success.”

• Liz Henrikson, Fruita Middle School

“In the north Austin, TX (Leander ISD), core teachers have common planning periods for PLC time. At my current school, St. Dominic Savio Catholic HS in North Austin, TX, we have two 45-minute periods each week in which teachers can meet and collaborate.”

• Sylvia Wood, St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School

“We have 4 teachers who teach a freshman Honors STEM Collaborative class. This is a project based science fair-type class. We teach in a common block. There is a 6 day rotation through each teacher's room. The engineering teacher shows the students how to use the saws/ drills/ equipment in our manufacturing lab. The comp sci teacher instructs students on digital safety and basic coding. I teach Bioscience and instruct the students on chemical and biological safety and how to read an SDS or NFPA placard.

The students are able to meet all the STEM teachers and see the resources available to them throughout the department. This is the 7th year of our collaboration. We have a common planning document to ensure all students get the same experience.”

• Michelle Landreville, Paradise Valley High School

“In Toledo Public Schools, Toledo, Ohio, we have 4 elementary STEM buildings that operate under a joint agreement between labor and management ,that provides for common planning times for teachers in the same grade level or content areas each week in their building. This common planning time is at least one hour, but many times it is more. Additionally, we have 4 half days(one per quarter) to meet with colleagues from the other STEM buildings to create a STEM network within our district. This allows for teachers to share, plan and create project based learning STEM units that cross over to other buildings.

After school twice a month teachers use their staff meetings to work on their plans, as well, with their building colleagues. We have found that we are still focused on district initiatives but are more successful building strategies into our plans by allowing teacher to have this additional time together. “

• Andrea Bennett, McKinley STEMM Academy, Toledo Public Schools

“For many years the Los Angeles Unified School District has what is called “banked-time” Tuesdays, meaning the other days have slightly more instructional minutes to allow students to leave 90 minutes earlier than teachers each Tuesdays. While the time is designated for professional development, that is never at the discretion of the individual or teams of teachers and is heavily scheduled to include SLC’s, departments, accreditation, etc. It does however mean that as department chair I will generally get two 90 (de facto 75) minute blocks per month to meet with my department although there are typically mandated topics we must address then for some portion of our collaborative time.”

• Margaret (Peg) Cagle, Reseda Charter High School

School Scheduling Resources - More Sample Schedules