Wouldn’t it be nice if successful learning occurred just by being inside a school building? Unfortunately, it is not that easy. “Seat-time,” the amount of time students spend in a classroom, is not a good predictor of achievement. Learning is a complex process, requiring much more than sitting at a desk.
Financially, schools are struggling. Like seat-time, money does not necessarily equate to achievement. Yet, with limited resources, how we allocate funds becomes even more important. Given our financial constraints, we need to do things differently if we are going to continue to improve education at I.S.D. 166.
The School Board of I.S.D. 166 recently adopted the Academic Calendar for 2012- 13. This calendar lengthens the school day slightly, extending the time students are in school by 28 minutes. The lengthened school day will allow the district to eliminate 13 student days from the calendar, saving the district approximately $80,000. The overall impact on student time is a reduction of 8 hours and 40 minutes. Our students will be in session 1,101 hours, significantly more than Minnesota’s requirement of 1,020 hours.
Faculty will be working the days students don’t attend. We are developing Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). PLCs are small groups of teachers who work together to set goals, discuss approaches to teaching, coach each other and problem-solve. This is not a new concept. Effective implementation of PLCs have led to higher student achievement and improved school culture. If you would like to learn more about PLCs, visit www.centerforcsri.org/plc/.
Teaching is an awesome career! I taught science in grades 9-12 for almost 20 years. Working with students, challenging and inspiring them is amazing. Still, I am not surprised one of the synonyms for “awesome” is “overwhelming.” The time required to plan and prepare for an engaging lesson is incredible.
I chose to go into administration to help change what I believe to be an antiquated educational system that is failing to meet the needs of 21st century students. If schools continue to function in a 20th century mode, students will emerge prepared for the 20th century.
The new calendar does not guarantee success; it needs to be coupled with hard work, commitment and support. Even then, we may find we need to make adjustments to the calendar, or our approach. The only guarantee is that if we continue with the same approach, we will get the same results.
We realize the new calendar will be different and families will need to make adjustments. The comments community members provided have been very helpful. In response, we moved days around to keep as much consistency as possible, added two instructional days and considered bus transportation in setting the school hours.
As we implement this new calendar, please continue to provide the district with your comments and suggestions as we continue to communicate and work together.
Each month a representative of our local schools will offer thoughts in Issues in Education. This month’s s contributor is Beth Schwarz, superintendent of School District 166.
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