"What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate"

The elementary principals here are collectively rearranging their schools’ schedules to create a unified literacy block every morning and greater opportunity for teachers to have common planning time. In order to do this, Art and Physical Education time will take a hit, as will some elementary teachers’ ability to focus on one particular subject area (i.e., just math) rather than having to teach all of the subjects. I think that the new schedules also will allow for a greater possibility of doing flexibile ability grouping within subject areas.

Many parents and teachers are unhappy about the changes. I’ve heard from several of them and this was under my windshield wiper last night when I left our school’s Science Night:

There are both pros and cons to the changes. My kids’ elementary school has a phenomenal art teacher and we’re not too keen on our kids seeing her less often. And, of course, regular physical activity is important too, particularly given the growing problem of childhood obesity. On the other hand, I’ve seen firsthand in many schools the benefits of having common planning periods, a greater emphasis on unified literacy instruction, flexible ability grouping, and so on. In a community like ours, where the family demographics are such that most districts would die to have the standardized test results and college attendance rates that we do, there also is a strong element of ‘the current system is working fine so why change it?’

The interesting issue for me is the communication problem that’s highlighted here. The plan was presented a week or two ago and the uproar is now starting to reach critical levels. If the principals had done a better job of communicating their intentions and involving teachers and parents in the planning, could this emotional upheaval have been avoided? Without admittedly knowing any of the particulars, I’m guessing that there probably was a way to avoid some of this.

On another note, paper flyers on windshields? Um, the Internet, anyone? Maybe even e-mail? Another tree gives its life to the cause…

[FYI, the title quote is from Cool Hand Luke.]

Comments

[Roger Whaley]

1.

This can be connected to the previous post. What if we treated our families like customers and gave them what they wanted? Don't we need to ask them what they want (get their input?)

I find it hard to believe that a schedule that does common planning time can't be worked out without cutting all these other classes back.

Don't we want healthy, well rounded and creative citizens?

[Charlie A. Roy]

2.

Thanks for this post. As a principal it is a wake up call that some decisions might need to be nursed along and obnoxiously communicated to help with buy in.

[Kim]

3.

I'm sure the extra planning time will be extremely beneficial but the parents and students have to be considered as well. How long do we expect children to sit with activity? Music and art have been shown to significantly increase achievement. They improve memory, processing skills and connections. Why can't your physical education and art teachers co-teach with the "regular" teachers to support each other. As a past "PE" teacher, anatomy and physiology teacher and now educational technology specialist I see numerous valuable connections that could solve many of the issues on both sides. Don't stop now- there may still be options to complete your solution.

[Walt]

4.

The message and the medium both seem a little sketchy, especially in light of research showing the efficacy of the "fine arts" programs in adjunct with literacy blocks.

It appears written, not by the district, but by concerned people outside of the brainstorm. That may explain the medium (paper flyers) and God bless grassroots involvement in public ed! Hopefully they'll look at the research on collaboration, literacy blocks and planning hours to see just how little U.S. teachers get and how valuable those things really are in children's learning processes, before they take their zeal into the board room.

[Carol]

5.

Is the extra planning time actually beneficial? Are the teachers trained to make the best use of the literacy block? Or is it just more time to do the same things that still don't work? In my daughter's class, more time on meaningless reading/literacy worksheets and contrived discussions just seems to be an extremely efficient way to make a former book-lover hate reading by sucking all the pleasure out of it.

[Russ Goerend]

6.

Flexible ability grouping? Preach on, brother!

[Dave Keane]

7.

I would agree that we often need to do a better job of communicating with our constituents. We are a service profession and as such need to consider our customers wants and needs. The problem lies in that often what our customers want is in direct conflict with what they need or even more common in education, the funding is not there to provide optimum conditions to ensure we meet all of the needs forcing administrators and their boards to prioritize needs. We have conflicting values in our society as is seen by all of the special projects that are advocated for by various groups.
This is not new. I have seen people who would advocate for dollars spent on beautifying a community while with in the same community there are children going hungry.
As a professional I have often watched as boards are influenced by powerful speakers who come to advocate for their own special programs of interest. Funding is channeled to these special interest programs at the expense of a less glamorous, yet far more effective program. Many of these programs are accessed by those who actually have the skills to navigate our political world. People are far more likely to come out and petition against a public official's decision than come out in support of one.
We have lost faith in our leaders and constantly question their decisions. Why would this not be the case? Time and again we have seen our leaders conduct themselves in unethical ways seeking to either benefit themselves or one of their supporters as the expense of others in much greater need.
As an individual who has had to make decisions like those outlined in the original post, I can attest to the fact that it is not always a matter of whether a program is beneficial or not, but often a decision between one good program over another.
I have seen where administrators try to compromise and scale back two programs rather than cut one to ensure the other continues to recieve the funding it needs to be successful. To me that is a poor decision as then you have two programs both of which are inadequately funded and therefore ineffective.
Executives make decisions like those outlined above all of the time in private companies often with much less in terms of data to support them.
I would guess that the principals in question have done their homework and made these decisions due to budget constraints and an effort to aid in meeting goals set for them by the board and the community.
I would guess that in communities where there are colleges and universities, it is very difficult to be an administrator. I am sure all of your decisions are questioned. I know that, in our society today, everyone deems themself an expert in education becasuse, afterall, they did attend schoolfor 12 years. Many times I have heard statements from constituents commenting on how things were done when they went to school. My favorite of those comments are concerning technology. Afterall, we didn't have cellphones, computers or many times calculators when "we" went to school. I think we often forget that when we were in school we were being prepared for today. Students who are in school now should be being prepared for tomorrow. There will be more changes between now and their future than what have occured in the past several past generations.
I hate to comment upon decisions made by administrators of another district. I myself would like to look at ways to engage students in activities which incorporate skills and concepts from a number of curricular areas rather than allocating more or less time for specific study of any one specific content.

[Roger Whaley]

8.

I think that common time for planning helps with some of Carol's concerns.

In my district, when teachers have time to share ideas, they also share the work. It takes no more time to find the materials and ideas for two identical classes as it does for one. This frees the other teachers to find another great activity.

The "drill and kill" worksheet is too easy to do if you are strapped for time.

Carol was also looking at the large amounts of time. I don't think throwing more time at a subject is the total answer. It is more complicated than that.

Spending large amounts of time in a day on a single subject is hard for me, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if the concepts were new or difficult for me. That would suck the joy out of a class for me. There are limits to how long one can focus in those situations.

I think I would be better off with more days and fewer hours than more hours on fewer days. Sometimes we focus on the total number of minutes and not on what we are really getting done with those minutes.

More time to not learn it in a day is not good. That said, not enough time to learn it isn't good either. There really is a yin and yang thing here.

[Sarah]

9.

The biggest impediment to the development of learning communities (PLC) in schools is usually a lack of common planning time. A common language arts block allows for teachers to observe each others classes and have flexible, differentiated, instructional groupings. That seems to be the district goal here. If they have gone to this level to provide that time, I would hope they have also done the homework with structuring the PLC to do valuable work.

I would say that I agree with these parents somewhat in that I hope they will still include art and P.E. infused in the program. This flyer, assuming it is accurate, is a good wake up call for administrators. I would encourage them to listen to these parents and consider bringing the P.E. and art teachers into the PLC conversations as well, not on a regular basis but perhaps monthly so that the teachers can all brainstorm ways that these teachers can help the regular ed teachers meet the learning and ENGAGEMENT needs of ALL students.

An example from a school in my district is the International Dance Festival. Each classroom chooses a country, the pe teacher teaches them a dance from that country. The music teacher teaches them the song/lyrics. The class also studies that country and creates simple costumes to reflect the country. It's a simple, fun way to integrate art, pe, history, and language in a way that engages kids and the community. At the end of the project, the festival is presented during the school day in late spring and draws many parents to watch.

[Jerry]

10.

My district changed the start times of the 3 high schools to allow for a common planning period in the morning. I have seen LESS professional development and planning/sharing than we've had in previous years. Many teachers see the extra hour in the morning as an extra hour to sleep in...disappointing.