Activity: Examine the Master Schedule for Your School

Description:
I worked with the principal and the assistant principal to examine the schools master
schedule for the upcomin school year! "e were lookin to see if there were any
pro#lem areas that may cause the schedule to not flow as well as possi#le!
"hat went well$
%he related arts chair offered to create the master schedule! &nce she created the
schedule she emailed it to the principal' assistant principal' and me! %his went well
#ecause it allowed us to look at it individually and to think a#out chanes that we felt
needed to #e made #efore oin #ack to discuss the pros and cons as a roup!
%he initial schedule ave an hour for a school(wide )%I #lock and *+ minutes for a
school(wide writin #lock! %his was reat #ecause #oth of these are important
countywide initiatives that need to #e included in every teachers schedule! ,y puttin
them in the master schedule it allows for all teachers to work on these initiatives at the
same time so that administration can o#serve the development of the initiatives across the
rade levels! It also allows the related arts personnel and other support staff to #e a#le to
o into the classroom and help the classroom teachers with small roups!
%here was not a lot of unused time for the classroom teachers! In other words' the master
schedule was not choppy leavin + or -. minutes here and there! %he schedule left
su#stantial time #locks that will allow for proper teachin to occur!
"hat did not$
In lookin at the schedule I /uickly reali0ed that the )%I hour was the very first hour of
the day! %his was a hue concern for me #ecause I know that we have many tardies at
our school! %his will #ecome an issue when teachers are referrin their students for
exceptional education testin since they will not #e a#le to #e referred if they have an
excess amount of tardies! "hen the roup met to review the schedule' I recommended
that the )%I hour and the writin #lock flip so that this is no loner an issue!
Another issue that I found with the schedule is that the related arts teachers at each school
are left with lare chunks of time where they are without classes! %his #ecomes a
concern #ecause they will #e left without anythin to do unless they are assined with
somethin to do! %his #ecame an issue #ecause the related arts teachers do not travel
#etween the two #uildins!
1iven the chance to do it aain' how would you do it #etter$
If iven the chance to do thins aain I would make sure to #uild in travel time for the
related arts teachers! %his would allow the rade levels to have common plannin
#ecause we would have enouh related arts takin place at the same time and it would not
allow for the related arts teachers to have so much down time at the end of the day!