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Why will students be dismissed
early on Fridays?
Teachers and principals say they need more consistent
and frequent planning and collaboration time with their
peers to improve student achievement. So students will
be dismissed 90 minutes early from elementary schools and
60 minutes early from middle schools and the high school
during the 2007-08 school year. Teachers will use the extra
hour or so to work collaboratively on instructional improvements
in a model called Professional Learning Communities.
What are Professional Learning Communities?
Put simply, a professional learning community is a team
of teachers who get together at least once a week to analyze
how well teaching strategies and curriculum are working,
how well individual students are learning what they need
to learn, and to generate ideas on how to improve each
student’s performance.
More formally, a professional learning community is a
model of school improvement developed by Richard DuFour,
former superintendent of Adlai Stephenson High School in
Illinois. Richard DuFour introduced the concept to Durango
teachers during a series of workshops in 2004. In a professional
learning community, teachers work as a collaborative team
to ensure that struggling students receive additional time
and support, and when teachers work together to address
an individual students’ needs, they apply more experience,
knowledge, and training toward solving the learning problem
than one teacher alone can do.
The professional learning community’s response to
student learning includes several important components:
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Timeliness. When a student has difficulty
learning a concept as quickly as his peers in the classroom,
he falls behind. In a professional learning community,
teachers act immediately to provide intervention strategies
to help the student learn and catch up with his peers.
And when a student enters a class with mastery of the
class content, teachers can provide enrichment or accelerated
lessons to keep the student engaged.
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Intervention versus remediation.
A professional learning community is like a learning
wellness plan. Teachers try to prevent learning gaps
from occurring through immediate intervention such
as giving students more time to learn, providing immediate
tutoring, or individualizing instruction rather than
relying on remedial courses, summer school, retention,
or other expensive remediation practices.
-
Directs students to seek help. A
professional learning community ensures that a student
devotes extra time or obtains additional help until
they have mastered the learning required.
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Focuses on results, both short- and long-term. The
professional learning community focuses not only on
what teachers are expected to teach, but also on knowing
when each student has learned. Teachers develop common
and frequent assessments that they analyze so that
they know what their students’ have learned after
teaching. They then work together to identify those
students who don’t have the skill levels expected
and create the strategies to close those students’ learning
gaps. Similarly, they also identify opportunities for
enrichment and acceleration for those who need it.
Why can’t teachers use the professional
development days they already have?
To be effective, professional learning communities must
meet frequently to prevent gaps from occurring in student
learning. That’s why weekly meetings are so important.
They give teachers a chance to address those learning gaps
as they occur rather than waiting four to six weeks for
another professional development day.
In addition, professional development days are used for
just that – training. Teachers need time to learn
about and use the latest developments in their profession.
The district also has made a commitment to provide all
teachers and staff training in cultural competencies to
be more effective instructors with our ethnically diverse
student population. That district-wide training will occur
during the professional development days common to all
schools.
Is this just for special education
or at-risk students?
Not at all. The professional learning community model
benefits all students, including gifted and talented students.
Teachers will address all student learning needs, and they
also will use the collaboration time to develop advanced
learning plans for students who need enrichment or accelerated
learning activities.
Don’t teachers already have
planning time during the day? Why can’t they use
that time?
Teachers do have individual planning times during the
day, but that time is devoted to preparing lesson plans
for their classes, meeting with parents, evaluating student
progress, or working on other district initiatives. Plus,
teachers’ planning times are scheduled at different
times of the day; they don’t have time in common
to work together as a professional learning community.
Why now?
Durango School District 9-R is a high-performing district
already, but to make more progress schools need to address
each student’s learning needs individually and systematically.
Our goal is to reduce the number of students who score
unsatisfactory – and move all students to the next
performance level, i.e., partially proficient to proficient,
and proficient to advanced. When teachers work together
to improve and coordinate teaching techniques and materials
across programs, classrooms, and schools, students receive
more consistent instruction throughout the day and the
year. More consistent instruction improves student learning.
But that kind of coordination and collaboration takes more
time than teachers currently have during the week.
How will it work?
Beginning Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, and continuing every
regularly scheduled Friday of school attendance, elementary
students will be dismissed 1-½ hours early. Middle
school and high school students will be dismissed 1 hour
early. The high school will continue the half-day early
release on the last day of each trimester.
Why Fridays?
Many students in the district already leave school early
on Fridays to participate in extracurricular sports and
academic activities. An average of 68 Durango High School
students miss instruction weekly because of extracurricular
activities on Fridays. (Some weeks it’s as low as
29 students, and others, as high as 180 students.) In addition,
fewer students are enrolled in the district's after-school
program on Fridays, indicating less need. By scheduling
the early release on Fridays, students involved in extracurricular
activities won’t miss so much school.
How will schools make up the time?
Doesn’t state law have attendance requirements?
State law defines the number of hours of instruction students
must attend, but does not define how those hours are distributed.
Elementary schools will reduce total instructional hours
overall, but will still exceed state requirements. The
secondary schools will divide their current professional
development days into the weekly early release times. Middle
schools actually will add two days of instruction, and
the high school will add five days of instruction to the
calendar. The middle schools and high school will start
the school year on Monday, Aug. 20, and elementary schools
will start on Wednesday, Aug. 22. Here’s a breakdown
of times:
Elementary Schools:
State requirement: 968 hours
Current attendance schedule: 1,048 hours
After early release: 1,003 hours
Current Number of Days: 170 days
Days after early release: 170 days
Middle Schools:
State requirement: 1,056 hours
Current attendance schedule: 1,083 hours
After early release: 1,064 hours
Current days: 171 days
After early release: 173 days
High School:
State requirement: 1,056 hours
Current attendance schedule: 1,058 hours
After early release: 1,058 hours
Current days: 171 days
After early release: 176 days
Will the early release mean that
students have less time for art, music, or physical education?
Based on the current number of hours available for elementary
teachers, the loss of 90 minutes should not impact the
amount of art, music, physical education, and library time
that students currently receive. Clearly, the intent is
not to lose any of that instructional time. The high school
will continue to offer the same number of instructional
hours, and the middle school will reduce 17 instructional
hours equally across the curriculum.
Incidentally, art, music, and physical education teachers
also will participate in the professional learning communities
with their peers.
This doesn’t make sense to
me. Shouldn’t that time be spent teaching rather
than talking about teaching?
When you’re a teacher, more than 90 percent of your
work time is spent teaching. No other profession requires
that amount of sustained production. Think about it. Most
businesses have weekly – even daily – staff
meetings to problem-solve, set priorities, and plan. Durango
teachers currently don’t have that time. In addition,
the professional learning community model is a research-based,
proven strategy to increase student achievement. Research
has demonstrated that substantive, sustainable improvement
in student achievement occurs in those schools that operate
as a professional learning community or a similar collaborative,
results-based environment. Professional learning communities
provide teachers with more opportunities to improve their
teaching so they can be more effective with the time they
DO have in the classroom.
Won’t teachers be tired and
unfocused at the end of a long week? How will you prevent
them from leaving early rather than staying at school?
We explored a number of different release programs in
districts elsewhere in Colorado, and districts chose release
times that made the most sense for their communities. Some
chose late starts for Monday mornings, others chose early
release on Wednesday afternoons or on Fridays. The Pagosa
Springs school district, for example, uses early release
time on Friday afternoons and found that parents appreciated
the early Friday release so that they could get a jump
on their weekend plans.
Durango teachers are professionals who are committed to
student learning and who are committed to using the time
wisely. Many have said that they prefer the Friday afternoon
release time, because it will allow them to summarize and
analyze a week’s worth of work so that they can plan
effectively for a fresh start on Mondays.
See also Why Fridays? above.
How will you know that the collaborative
planning time is effective?
The simplest answer? Student achievement will improve;
the number of students scoring unsatisfactory will be reduced,
and the number of students scoring advanced will increase.
We also will conduct a teacher survey this year to determine
whether they believe the time was used effectively. The
district will submit a report to the school board on activities
conducted at each school, student achievement results,
and the survey results next Spring to determine whether
the early release program should continue.
Will the bus schedules change for the
early release?
Yes. School buses will pick up elementary students 90
minutes earlier and secondary students 60 minutes earlier
on Fridays to accommodate the early release schedule.
What about students who attend Kids
Kamp? Won’t the early release mean more expenses
for parents?
No. The Kids Kamp after-school enrichment program will
provide watch elementary students for free during the 90
minutes of Professional Learning Communities. Families
who do not pick up their children by the regular dismissal
hour will be charged for any time their child stays in
Kids Kamp after the regular dismissal hour.
If you have additional questions, call the Office of
Public Information at 247-5411, ext. 1440, or write duroda@durango.k12.co.us.
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