Planning around an impossible schedule
January 7, 2022
The high school has seen many different schedules over the past two school years, and the return to a two-week schedule has proven to be difficult for teachers. With varying class lengths, varying numbers of class meetings per week and ninth grade cohort schedules, the current schedule has been an additional source of stress for teachers.
Gorlin said because each block does not meet the same number of times per week, teachers often struggle to plan ahead.
“The confusing nature of the schedule is challenging. I know a lot of my colleagues are struggling with keeping their blocks aligned, and so it’s a lot of extra work to think about – what to do with certain classes that are ahead or [for ones] that are behind,” Gorlin said.
Conner said the difficulties with the schedule have caused unnecessary stress and exhaustion, especially when managing different ninth grade cohorts.
“I have the 115 schedule, I have a red cohort schedule and I have the blue cohort schedule and none of those lined up at the beginning of the year. I spent many, many hours trying to figure that out,” Conner said. “There’s a residual kind of knock-on effect of just how exhausted I think the community is from that, particularly at OLS, so that certainly didn’t help and that’s preventable. I’m hopeful that that will be very different going forward in future years.”
Balancing the introduction of new programs, like including social-emotional learning time at the start of every class is also a major stressor. Social studies teacher Noah Gronlund-Jacob said the administration implementing new programs and initiatives into the classroom complicates the process of teachers planning their classes.
“Introducing social-emotional learning, isn’t just an, ‘okay, I’m going to give my kids five minutes in the beginning of class to reflect on something fun that happened this weekend.’ If I give them five minutes for that, they don’t have five minutes to discuss a reading. And if I can’t discuss that reading for five minutes, that means we’re not going to get to the content for the quiz, which means I have to redesign the quiz, which ultimately is decreasing the rigor for students because they’re required to know less content,” Gronlund-Jacob said.