Collaboration time adds up to success
The Coeur d'Alene School District is asking its Board of Trustees to approve a plan that would provide time for teachers to meet weekly to systematically work together to analyze and improve classroom practices. To provide this Monday morning "collaboration time" and still meet the state requirements for student instruction, our schools would lengthen the school day by about 15 minutes.
Currently our secondary schools dismiss at 2:30 p.m. and our elementary schools dismiss at 3:15 p.m. If the School Board authorizes the change, starting in September our secondary schools would dismiss at 2:40 and the elementary school day would end at 3:30 p.m.
On Mondays, students would arrive an hour later than on other days. We know this presents some issues of meal times, transportation and child care, and we have worked hard to address those concerns.
Our Nutrition Services would serve breakfast and lunch on Collaboration Mondays an hour later and our Transportation Department would run both elementary and secondary buses one hour later than normal.
To help alleviate hardship for child care, we have taken the following steps. Parents who currently have children enrolled in School PLUS would have extended Monday morning coverage at no additional cost.
Schools with CDA 4 Kids (Fernan, Lakes, Borah, Bryan and Woodland) would make that program available to students at no charge. Families who are not enrolled in School PLUS would have child care available on Monday mornings for $14 per month. We will work with any family which cannot afford that fee but needs child care. Our goal is that no family is unfairly burdened financially by this change.
Our district-sponsored afterschool activities would be adjusted to the new schedule and we are asking community businesses that have sports, music and arts programs to accommodate the time change, as they have in the past.
Most working parents of elementary-age children have schedules that already require before or after school care. Those parents who wait for their child's school bus before heading to work would have the option of driving to school on Monday mornings to take advantage of School PLUS or CDA 4 Kids.
Why can't school schedules stay as they are? National research shows student achievement improves when teachers have collaboration and planning time built into their schedule. Our teachers association and administration agreed six years ago to begin studying collaboration time. Three of our schools have piloted either a late-start or early-release and have found it to be extremely valuable.
Since our buses do double duty each morning, it isn't possible for each school to design its own collaboration schedule. The Monday morning option was preferred by most teachers. We think it will provide a good start to the week for staff and will give students one more hour to get up and ready after the weekend. Monday mornings also avoid a midweek disruption for students with disabilities.
We are committed to staff collaboration because it is good for teachers and good for students. During the last month, every school has held a parent meeting to further discuss the collaboration proposal and answer any questions. The School Board is expected to make a decision at its June 7 meeting on whether to authorize our schools to implement collaboration this fall.
Hazel Bauman is superintendent of Coeur d'Alene School District.