Making time for adult learning
By Priscilla Pardini
Journal of Staff Development, Spring 1999 (Vol. 20, No. 2)
Using time well is easier said than done. Here are eight real-life examples of schools that make the minutes count.
One hour early
Iowa City Community School District
Iowa City, Iowa
It was 25 years ago that a group of Iowa City teachers sought the support of their school's PTA for a staff development program that involved releasing students from school one hour early every week. "It was a grassroots movement begun by the teachers that grew out of the need for time for planning for children," says Pam Ehly, director of instruction for the Iowa City Community School District.
The early release concept, considered radical at the time, is now in place throughout the district as well as in a growing number of other school systems nationwide. In Iowa City, students are released one hour early–they leave school between 2:00 p.m. and 2:20 p.m.–every Thursday. That gives teachers a block of time that runs until 4 p.m. for staff development. Twice a month the agenda focuses on building-level concerns. One school's staff might choose, for example, to hire a consultant to lead a seminar on classroom management. At another school, the discussion might focus on how best to meet the requirements of the federal Individual Disability Education Act. On the other two Thursdays each month, the staff development sessions are organized around districtwide issues. All fourth grade social studies teachers, for instance, might meet to discuss developmentally appropriate strategies for teaching a unit on elections.
Ehly says care is taken to make sure the staff development time is well used. District curriculum coordinators plan citywide inservices, and principals are asked to report back on what is happening at their schools. Ehly says a new individual reading inventory designed to assess pupils' elementary language arts progress was successfully introduced thanks in large part to the availability of time to train teachers on how to administer the instrument.
The early-release program has become "part of our system" and is well accepted by parents, Ehly says, and the program was acceptable to state officials as long as the district met requirements governing the length of the school day.
For more information, contact Pam Ehly
Director of instruction
Iowa City Community School District
509 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA 52240
Phone: (319) 339-6800
Fax: (319) 339-6890
E-mail: ehly@iowa-city.k12.ia.us
" I have happy teachers’’
Hefferan Elementary School
Chicago, Illinois
On any given day at Hefferan Elementary School on Chicago's West Side, it’s Resource Day for one group of pupils and their teachers. That means children get a day full of "specials"–art, music, and gym classes, as well as visits to the school's library and computer lab. Their teachers, meanwhile, get four hours devoted exclusively to staff development.
Principal Denise Little says the concept began eight years ago in an attempt to capture time for teachers to plan and learn together during the school day. "I decided you have to make time for yourself," she says.
Resource Day begins in a traditional way–with a block of regular classroom time devoted to reading instruction. But at 10:30 a.m., the pupils on the Resource Day schedule begin moving through their special classes while their teachers report for the first of the day's two staff development sessions. The pupils rejoin their classroom teachers for lunch, followed by more specials and more staff development.
Generally, two grades are scheduled to have Resource Day each day of the week. That gives all second grade teachers, for example, the opportunity to work together in staff development sessions. Because most school holidays fall on Monday, the schedule changes every 10 weeks.
Little says that under a traditional schedule, teachers could count on "45 minutes of peace" a day while their pupils were in one of their "special" classes. "But by the time you spend five minutes walking the children to class and five minutes walking them back, you're down to 35 minutes of free time," Little says. "And what can you really get done?"
Although some of the staff development time is earmarked for writing lesson plans, teachers also meet together to develop curriculum, review instructional materials, and talk about the needs of their pupils. Teachers sometimes leave Hefferan to attend workshops and consultants visit the school on a regular basis.
One consultant recently conducted sessions over the course of a week for the entire staff on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. Little believes increased scores on that test–the number of third grade pupils scoring at or above average has jumped nine percent in reading and 27 percent in math in the last year–can be traced to increased staff development and greater collaboration among teachers.
"I have happy teachers," she says. "And happy teachers teach better."
For more information, contact Denise Little, principal,
Hefferan Elementary School
4409 W. Wilcox Ave.
Chicago, IL 60624
Phone: (773) 534-6192
Fax: (773) 534-6190
Deposits and withdrawals
Rufus King High School
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
So why wasn't the student at Milwaukee's Rufus King High School doing her homework on a recent Sunday night? "Tomorrow's a banking day," she replied happily. "I'll do it then."
That's "banking" as in "banking time," a Milwaukee Public Schools initiative designed to provide staff development and planning time for teachers and support staff. School officials say the program is an important element of the district's school reform effort. "If we're seriously going to talk about restructuring, we have to have time to talk about it," says Steven Huffman, leadership specialist for Milwaukee Public Schools. "And we need big blocks of time when teachers are fresh."
The district's Banking Time program, negotiated with the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, is a way of capturing that time. Huffman says the program was pioneered in the early 1990s by 10 or 15 schools. By 1994, a total of 90 schools were participating. All but a handful of the district's 160 schools have opted to take part this year.
The program allows schools to add a few minutes to the school day, "bank" the time, and release students a total of five full days a year. At Rufus King, that means starting school at 7:30 a.m., five minutes earlier, and dismissing classes at 2:40 p.m., five minutes later. Schools participating in the program all release students on the same five days, which are spread out over the course of the year. The dates are well publicized as part of the school calendar, and Huffman says officials have heard few complaints from parents.
According to the agreement between the teachers' union and school district, teachers at each participating school have input into how half of the day is spent. At some schools, part of the day is used to write lesson plans or grade papers, Huffman says, but at many schools the entire day is spent on staff development. Typically, teachers use the time to take part in study groups on pedagogical issues, develop curriculum, take classes in technology, develop assessment tools, or familiarize themselves with new textbooks.
Huffman calls the Banking Time program very helpful. "Schools have very limited options when it comes to staff development," he says. "You have after school or on Saturdays, which is an expensive proposition. This gives us some time within the auspices of the normal day."
For more information, contact Steven Huffman
Leadership specialist, Milwaukee Public Schools
P.O. Drawer 10K
Milwaukee, WI 53201-8210
Phone: (414) 475-8480
Fax: (414) 475-8470
E-mail: HUFFSB@mail.milwaukee.k12.wi.us
" They don’t correct papers’’
Central Park East Secondary School
New York City, New York
Staff at New York City's Central Park East Secondary School have found a way to link two issues considered vital to its program: student community service and staff development. "We want kids to be able to get to know their community and to provide service to agencies that need it," says Anne Purdy, the school's service learning internship coordinator. "We can see the learning that comes from this kind of experience."
Equally valuable is the staff time freed up when the school's eighth, ninth, and tenth graders are out of the school building a half day each week working at nonprofit agencies such as museums, hospitals, and nursing homes. "We also know that one of the things that's absolutely crucial is time for teachers to meet and speak with their colleagues," Purdy says. Teachers use the time for true staff development, often for department meetings to develop curriculum or attend workshops taught by staff members or outside experts. Teachers also work in groups to evaluate student work according to state and New York City standards, or collaborate on strategies designed to meet the needs of individual students.
"They don't correct papers," Purdy says.
Central Park East's method for finding staff development time could be replicated at no cost by virtually any school where students are involved in community service. The major cost of setting up community service programs comes in personnel. At Central Park East that includes Purdy–who finds the student placements, provides ongoing evaluation and troubleshoots–as well as a paraprofessional and an aide.
For more information, contact Anne Purdy,
Service Learning Internship Coordinator
Central Park East Secondary School
1573 Madison Ave.
New York, N.Y. 10029
Phone: (212) 860-5805
Fax: (212) 876-3494
E-mail: anne_purdy@ace.org
Fridays for 90 minutes
Freemont High School
Sunnyvale, California
On almost every Friday during the school year, teachers at Freemont High School in Sunnyvale, Calif., arrive at school to spend the first 90 minutes of their day not with their students, but with each other. From 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., they talk about school redesign, "the way we can meet the goals we've set for our school," says Assistant Principal Larry Vilaubi. He says Late Start Fridays provide the regular, ongoing time teachers need to focus on such issues as assessment, standards, literacy, and community involvement. Evidence of progress in those areas has helped Freemont qualify for $250,000 in grants from the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, a project funded with part of the $500 million donated by philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg in 1993 for school reform.
Vilaubi says finding time for staff development at Freemont during the regular school day has become even more critical given two recent, local developments. The first is a reduction in the number of state-allowed preservice days for teachers. "The state wanted teachers spending more time in the classroom with kids instead of with each other," Vilaubi says of the mandated change in the school calendar. The second is a substitute teacher shortage that makes it much more difficult to use grant money to hire subs to fill in for teachers involved in staff development programs. In the past, Vilaubi says, 10 to 15 teachers at a time would be pulled out of their classrooms to work together. "But given the general teacher shortage in California and the mandate to reduce class size, we often can't find 15 subs," he says. Vilaubi described Late Start Fridays as a relatively easy, no-cost way to provide staff development, which he describes as "a high priority" at Freemont. Because the school day is sufficiently long Monday through Friday (7:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.), the school easily meets the state's minimum instructional time requirements. The concept has also met with approval from the staff, students and community, Vilaubi says.
For more information, contact Larry Vilaubi,
Assistant principal, Freemont High School
1279 Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
Phone: (408) 522-2411
Fax: (408) 732-2256
E-mail: lvilaubi@fuhsd.org
Meet me on Wednesdays
Wells Junior High School
Wells, Maine,
When staff members at Wells Junior High School in Wells, Maine, began looking for time to devote to departmental planning, they had to look no further than their Wednesday faculty meetings.
"We looked hard at how we were spending that time," says Principal Jeff Rodman. Although nominally a junior high school serving students in grades 5-8, Wells is organized around the middle school "team" concept. And while teachers had team planning time built into their schedules, there was no opportunity for all the school's math teachers, for example, to meet as a group.
For the past several years, a revamped meeting schedule has filled that void. Now the entire faculty meets once rather than twice a month to tackle issues of schoolwide concern. Another Wednesday each month provides time for the school's building leadership teams–groups of teachers designated as grade-level leaders–to meet together and with school administrators. The third Wednesday is reserved for departmental meetings. "It's allowed us to work on such things as curriculum, ways to teach in longer blocks of time and portfolio assessment," Rodman says. "It's opened up discussion on what each teacher is covering, and how to streamline the curriculum so as not to step on each others' toes." Meetings are scheduled on the fourth Wednesday of each month as needed–generally either for building leadership team or departmental meetings.
Rodman says reducing the number of schoolwide faculty meetings has been difficult: At Wells, those meetings are largely used as opportunities for shared decision making. "But the advantages of having time for teachers to meet across grades about curriculum outweighs the disadvantages," he says. He speculates that would be the case in many other schools, especially where faculty meetings consist largely of administrative announcements and routine housekeeping tasks that could be handled in other ways.
For more information, contact Jeff Rodman, principal
Wells Junior High School
P.O. Box 310, Wells, ME 04090
Phone: (207) 646-5142
Fax: (207) 646-2899
E-mail:jrodman@wocsd.maine.org
Innovative mornings
Holt High School
Holt, Michigan
Eight or nine years ago, teachers at Holt High School in Holt, Mich. began looking for ways to find the time they needed to launch innovative projects. "They were asking, 'How can we make time available at little or no cost to the district?'" says Superintendent Tom Davis. In the end, teachers recommended combining the before- and after-school preparation time called for in their contracts into one four-hour block of time. Teachers got that time back on Wednesday mornings, when the start of classes was delayed until 11:30 a.m. On each of the other four days of the week, instructional time was added to make up for the late start on Wednesday.
"We thought parents might object," Davis says, "but we held forums on what we'd do with the time and why it was necessary for teachers to collaborate, and there was no resistance at all."
Today, Wednesday mornings at Holt High School generally are divided into three blocks of time, with one set aside for a general faculty meeting. The remaining 2 1/2 hours is devoted to adult learning. "The only rule we've had over the years is that you can't spend the time on business as usual," Davis says. "It's for collaborative teams of teachers to talk about innovative ideas."
Davis credits the staff development program with giving teachers time to develop several of the school's more unique endeavors, including a three-year, sequentially integrated science curriculum that combines chemistry, biology, and physics into one class, and a geometry course taught with the help of computer-aided drawing software.
Other evidence the time is being well spent: $2 million in grants applied for by and awarded to teachers for projects the district cannot afford.
For more information, contact Supt. Tom Davis,
Holt Public Schools
4610 Spahr Ave., Holt, MI 48842
Phone: (517) 694-0401
Fax: (517) 694-1335
E-mail: tdavis@holt.K12.mi.us
Aides step in
Jackson Road Elementary School
Montgomery County, Maryland
At Jackson Road Elementary School in Montgomery County, Md., school officials are turning to their own paraprofessionals to help make time for staff development. About once a month, teachers are released from teaching in small groups to attend training sessions devoted to computer technology, public health, and curriculum issues. Recently, for example, a group of Jackson Road teachers observed master teachers in other district schools using a new language arts textbook series. The observations were followed up with additional in-school sessions attended by Jackson Road teachers and district curriculum specialists. The meetings focused on how best to adapt the new series to meet the needs of Jackson Road pupils–the vast majority of whom are achieving below grade level.
The district's contract allows teacher aides, using lesson plans prepared by teachers, to step in and cover classes up to an hour at a time. If the paraprofessionals cover classes for more than an hour, they are paid according to the district's substitute teacher pay rate.
Principal Joseph Heaney says the practice works well. "In many cases, our paras are just as capable as the teachers and tend to have more experience," he says. "Plus, of course, they already know the kids." Staff development sessions are also scheduled for the school's paraprofessionals. On those days, teachers take on their aides' duties as well as their own.
For more information, contact Joseph Heaney, principal
Jackson Road Elementary School
1501 Ashburton St.
Baltimore, MD 21216
Phone: (410) 396-0540
Fax: (410) 545-7842
E-mail: lxgupjoe2@aol.com
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