Monday, November 8, 2010
Time
We've already made it through the 1st quarter of the school year. I have no idea how it went so quickly. I don't know about you, but I had a lot of good ideas at the beginning of the year, and I haven't had the time to address/implement a lot of them. I'm sure everyone feels this way. Some of my LD colleagues and I have been discussing the lack of time we have to collaborate with each other and implement all of the things we've been fortunate enough to get some additional training for. I've gotten to attend some really good/relevant professional development workshops, and I always leave them feeling so positive and excited, but when I get back to school and reality sets in (students' daily lessons, accommodations, unexpected problems, not to mention parent concerns/phone calls/emails), the momentum gets lost and frankly so do some of the skills I learned. I wish we had scheduled time during our school day/week/month to spend time with our colleagues planning and training each other with some of the amazing things we have been able to learn about. We have been meeting Friday mornings as a small group (LD teachers) to discuss testing, lessons, student issues, Resource Room concerns, and any other communication needs, but that's not enough time to train each other or really implement any new things. I don't think it's unreasonable to have this opportunity during our paid day because I don't know a single teacher (general ed or special ed) who does not do a lot of planning, grading, due process outside of their contracted day. I really feel this time would be vaulable and would improve not only our daily lessons/curriculum for students, but I think it would have a positive impact on our professional culture as a building and across the district.
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Have you brought this up with BLT or any other avenues? I know I can provide you with all the reasons this hasn't happened in the past, but it's always worth bringing up again! We know all the reasons we *should* have more common planning time. :) I also know that VT time for special ed is sometimes used for districtwide activities so you might lose out on some of that 'together time.'
ReplyDeleteIf I remind you about an earlier post you made, though, what are ways we can 'make it work?' What is in our control and how can we take advantage of the time we do have to make it most effective and efficient?
Before I came to Shakopee, I was at a high school that had zero hour every Wednesday. Zero hour allowed student clubs and activities to meet and it also allowed PLCs time to meet. The busses still ran at the same time so it didn't affect any other school in the district, but if students didn't have any meetings that morning (and they had a ride) they could come to school later (Instead of starting at 7:50 they started at 8:20). I brought it up at one of our first BLT meetings, but they immediately said it's been brought up before and it won't work with our contract. I am assuming another reason that it's not built into our schedules is that some people would not use it for its intended purpose.
ReplyDeleteYour right, VT for special ed doesn't really give us the same opportunities as some of the other content areas as far as collaborating/planning time. I have definitely found it beneficial to make agendas for the meeting time we do have planned with our small disability group, so that we stay on topic/task. It's easy to get into a complaining session and although it feels good to have people agree/validate your frustration (and at times that's what we need), it usually isn't very productive if that's all we end up talking about.
The first school I worked in (Osseo Area Learning Center in Brooklyn Park) also had an "advisory" schedule that was run every other week. During this time we were able to meet with our PLC groups and work on our SMART goal. There were a few high schools in the district but we were the only one that made it a priority to put PLC collaboration time into the school day. But I know we were fortunate to have that experience.
ReplyDeleteIn Anoka Hennepin, every Monday we met with our PLC groups but every other Monday we had an "extended PLC" meeting. Our advisory students would go to another teacher's classroom and we'd swap every week. It worked well and we were able to collaborate to make better common assessments in our department.
I agree, I would love more time to collaborate and put our great knowledge we learn into action. I wish our contract days were longer! It seems like you are doing a great job of making things efficient with what time we do have to plan and discuss.