At first glance, developing a master schedule that meets all of the demands facing a school today seems daunting. There are so many critical pieces of best-practices teaching and administrating that need to be addressed and not enough hours in the day to accommodate the demands, or so it appears at first perusal. After careful examination and prioritization, savvy school leaders can and do make successful decisions regarding time allotment, as is witnesses in most high achieving school across our country. When student outcomes are the primary focus that drives the school culture and calendar, it would be difficult to not succeed at this most important task. The master schedule must include time for instruction (core academics and supplemental course work), intervention and/or enrichment, collaboration, assessment, staff meetings, and planning. It is not enough to just expect teachers to use their time wisely- a strong leader must wisely allot time and make sure that all students receive the instruction that they each deserve. Collaboration and PLC teams must operate and intertwine with one another seamlessly. Grade level teams and specialized teams need the time to interact with each other. Teams need to be fluid, and members must have the time to serve on other PLC groups as needed for stude nt growth. Core academics need to flow with specials and electives classes, and all teacher need access to the expertise that can come from an MTSS or special education team.
Adding just an extra ten minutes to each class, the new schedule would create the potential for students to have more homework time, lab time, learning time, and/or valuable free time to read for pleasure, relax with music, draw, etc. (Hadfield). Especially as students get older and more involved in extracurriculars and rigorous academic courses, the need for any spare moment to get assignments done, study, or even sleep increases. When this time is unavailable or extremely hard to get, students are more likely to fall asleep in class, miss school due to illness, misbehave, cheat, hand in incomplete assignments, or drop out altogether. The same is largely true for teachers. The more homework turned in by students, the more grading has to be done by teachers who are already exhausted from a long, often repetitive day of work. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the fact that this extra time should not be used to cram in larger quantities of learning standards or homework problems, but rather to enhance the quality of the already demanding school regulations that are in schools
How would the population react if the schedule that structures many peoples’ entire year were to change? This change is a reality for a growing number of families across the country as a method of improving primary and secondary education through year-round school. Although many have come to accept or even embrace year-round school in an effort to help students retain more material, year-round school would actually disrupt the learning environment, be potentially detrimental for students and their family’s financial health, as well as that of the schools, and could take away from family and personal time.
In conclusion, high schools should keep the time to start and end school the way it is. It is not worth it if students comes back from school later in the afternoon and doesn’t know what to do before dark comes. Even if they do know what they’re gonna do like probably go to work, do after school activities, and activities outside from home. The whole school gets affected because for teachers who have a young child they won’t be able to do anything they want before their child comes home from school. So if everyone get’s a negative affect by this then it’s truly not worth the money to change the
Sommerfeld, Meg. "More and More Schools Putting Block Scheduling to Test of Time." Education Week. N.p., 02 May 2016. Web. 24 Mar.
What is your least favorite class, the one you dread most? Picture yourself walking into that class, taking a seat, and watching the clock move slowly as you suffer through the next 90 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly. Imagine being stuck in your least favorite class for an hour and a half! This is a reality that many high school students experience every day. It is block scheduling. “Unlike traditional bell schedules - which typically comprise six to eight class periods per day, lasting anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes - block schedules contain just four daily class periods, with each one lasting an average of 90 minutes” (Block Scheduling in Schools 1). Although designed to increase student achievement, block schedules carry a number of disadvantages that make them an inadequate method for offering high school students a successful learning environment. Despite its few benefits, block scheduling works in direct conflict with most human attention spans, creates more scheduling problems than it solves, and lacks any solid evidence of improving student learning. In a world where educational practices come and go, block scheduling is a fad that should never have arrived in the first place.
By implementing this idea in Area Two schools to support special education students, we will create a more data driven approach to increasing student achievement. By following this idea the team will also do a better job of implementing professional development and mentorships that greatly increase teacher effectiveness. The idea will also increase understanding of the diversity of the schools and promote community involvement by establishing more open communication with the parents and the community to support their students’ needs. The leadership teams will work together to set goals and objectives to support achievement in all grade levels. They will develop a framework for good communication between teachers and leaders so there is
List any special features of your school or classroom setting (e.g., charter, co-teaching, themed magnet, classroom aide, bilingual, team taught with a special education teacher) that will affect your teaching in this learning segment.
List any special features of your school or classroom setting (e.g., charter, co-teaching, themed magnet, intervention or other leveled small group instruction, classroom aide, bilingual, team taught with a special education teacher) that will affect your teaching in this learning segment.
From the early 1900’s through today, America society as a whole has embraced the nine month general education school year. As we progress into the future, we need to look for more efficient ways to educate the general populous. When we initially went to a nine month school year, there were a multitude of reasons. As we look at the reasons why we began to utilize a nine month school schedule, we need to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of transitioning to a year round school model. While we continue to grow and expand as a nation, we need to reevaluate our current school model. From this, we will look at why schools should transition to year round schools, and abandon the
Educational debates are a widespread in today’s society. Currently, one of the largest debates in education is the debate of whether schools should stay with the traditional school calendar or change to a year-round calendar. The main focus of the debate is centered around the idea that using the year-round calendar will provide kids with a more consistent learning schedule, which in turn creates better grades within the school and cuts back on summer learning loss. Year-round calendar and traditional calendar are far different. Traditional school calendar provides ten weeks of summer break and year-round calendar provides a shorter summer break but more frequent breaks throughout the year. The frequent breaks provide families the
When you first hear about the schedule and look at its outline, it sounds pretty solid. More breaks, longer breaks, and the main idea of getting done with core classes faster. For a student, hearing that sounds pretty good. For example if a student doesn’t lie one of the core classes then they would only have to put up with it for one-quarter.
As a way to minimize summer learning loss, the reorganization of the traditional school calendar in the year-round education system replaces long summer vacations with several smaller breaks throughout the year (Raisch, 2008). In year-round education policies, the schools are set on a school plan and track system. This maximizes the use of school facilities by dividing the school attendance days into rotating instruction and vacation segments. According to Chittom and Klassen (2014), “The plan determines the number of consecutive days students attend school and also dictates the break schedule.” In the year-round school calendar, the 45-15 plan, the 60-20 plan, and the 90-30 plan are the most common. For example, students on a 45-15 plan would
Do you ever find yourself stressing for a certain class and working on homework instead of paying attention for the class you are in? A major solution to this problem that many students at Wellington- Napoleon High School face is to change to the hybrid schedule which would give us more instructional time in core classes, have a variety of classes each week, and finally, have more class options instead of unneeded or extra classes. Around the school you hear many people constantly complaining about the new seven hour schedule and various problems that they are faced with throughout the school day. I feel like there are many simple solutions to all the problems with our high school’s schedule that the staff should really consider.
It is October 15th. Normally, students would be at school, working for hours on end at math, communication arts, and science. But this year is different. This year your school has now entered into the year-round calendar system. At home, you can enjoy the season of fall with pumpkins, Halloween, and beautiful weather. The idea of year round school has most commonly been pushed aside because of the misconception that it is too much school, or an on-going cycle of learning. However, those who declare this, do not understand the year-round school concept. Year-round school provides the same number of days as the traditional calendar. The difference, which will change our society and the achievement rate of our students in the future, is that the days are reordered into intersessions. The mechanisms of year round school include students attending school for a nine week period, then following this is a three week break. This rotation occurs year-round with a slightly longer summer break. Consequently, Though many people agree with keeping tradition with the popular school calendar, new evidence and testimony proves that year-round school provides the better avenue because the world is evolving, it benefits low income students, and intersessions are more effective than summer break.
At the onset of my principal practicum at Endeavor Elementary School, the first meeting that I attended was a discussion regarding the daily and weekly schedule. Particular concern was given to the number of minutes that need to allocated for Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) as well as the addition of a new science textbook and curriculum in the coming fall. Additionally, the use of combination classes is a historical characteristic of the school structure and is a necessity financially to maintain the operation of the small rural elementary school. Hence, grades are divided for core instruction such as English, science, and social studies; while CMP math brings the grade levels back together. For example, in one class a teacher will have a combination of 3rd and 4th graders and another class will have 4th and 5th graders combined. Consequently, when CMP math is taught one the students travel to on teacher who teaches their grade level math. Furthermore, CMP requires a minimum of sixty minutes to complete each lesson.