Wednesday, August 14, 2019

School Schedules and Calendars: Lead Time Matters

We received our school schedule yesterday a couple of weeks before the start of school. It's advantageous for educators to receive those schedules ahead of the first few teaching days of the year because it allows us to carefully plan classroom routines and events.

We also have a shared school calendar, and that helps a lot too. The more that educators have shared calendars, scheduling documents, and apt processes related to effective scheduling, the better. Lead time and good process help us to make plans for awesome field studies, expert visitors, and student-centered programming and learning experiences. All educators know that once the school year gets started, there's little time for this kind of good planning and prep.

Now that our system leadership has shared the schedules, teachers can begin the next leg of planning including the following:

Scheduling Intervention Services
Multiple educators push in and pull out with regard to providing specialized services and therapies to students. Now that we've crafted a draft schedule, we'll want to carefully plan those service routines so that students do not miss essential class time and so that students receive the good services they are supposed to receive.

Scheduling Field Studies and Expert Visitors
There is substantial phone time and paperwork related to scheduling expert visitors. To do that before the school year begins is advantageous for all.

Team Time and Weekly Routines
Having this information allows our collegial team to plan a healthy, positive weekly routine of learning experiences and team time.