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COMPETENCY 6: ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Related Task: 6.1


Ability to develop alternate patterns of space, time, and child-staff groupings.

Specific Task: 6.1.1


Develop a master special schedule for a school.

Specific Task: 6.1.2


Create an alternate special schedule with different specials, one will have teachers
receiving music 2 or 3 times a week and one will have the teachers receiving music 3 or
4 times a week.

Narrative description of Specific Task:


Create at least two different master special schedules for current school year. One
special schedule will have teacher receiving music 2 or 3 times a week, in addition to a
science special and another will have teachers receiving music 3 or 4 times a week, in
addition to 1 science lab time. The school will choose which schedule works best.

Description and Analysis of the Administrative Activities


This competency was originally going to be done by creating a special schedule
for the following school year. However, due to budget cuts, a schedule had to be
created now and had to cut gym from occurring daily. The original special schedule
included music 2-3 times a week at 30 minutes a session, gym 2-3 times a week at 30
minutes a session, and science lab 1 day a week for 45 minutes a session. The new
special schedule would include gym and would only be offered every Thursday so that
all classroom teachers at every grade would be able to participate in grade level
meetings because teachers planning periods are tied to the specials. If teachers
wanted to, they would have the option to take their classes to the gym and teach the
class. Teachers would get science lab time for 45 minutes once a week and music for
30 minutes a certain amount of times per week. The amount of times per week would
be determined as I created the schedule.
If the previous schedule had been used, eliminating gym, then one teacher/class
from a grade level would have received 2 plannings/specials during the weeks that they
have grade level meetings and 3 plannings/specials on weeks that grade level meetings

did not occur. The other grade level teacher/class would receive planning/special 2
more times than their grade level partner.
The first thing I had to do was look at all the schedules (computer lab, library,
special education, Title I, 31A schedules) so that the new special schedule did not
interfere with other schedules. After obtaining the other schedules, I started to work on
creating a special schedule that included all the new elements. When I originally sat
down to look at the schedules, it seemed like it was going to be an easy task and it
could be done quickly.
As I was looking at the schedule, I was realizing that the teachers would have
one day where they would not receive a special at all, I began to wonder if there was a
way to give the teachers a fair amount of planning time among grade levels. So, I
started by looking at the music teachers schedule and saw that she had a lot of open
time for planning and lunch. By changing this, it allowed more planning time for the
teachers, as well as making an easier transition for the students and teachers and is
more educationally sound for the students. This was the rationale behind doing this
competency.
So I began to try to give the teachers an additional planning, in grades K-5, on
the days that they did not have a planning. The reason I was only giving teachers in
grades K-5 an additional planning was because grades 6-8 got a 45 minute planning
each day. When I calculated the times that grades 6-8 would receive each month, it
equaled 675 minutes a month. Teachers in grades K-5 were going to receive between
450-480 minutes a month without the extra planning. If teachers received the additional
planning, then their monthly planning time would increase to 570-600 minutes. It
seemed fair to give the K-5 teachers more planning to bridge the gap between them and
the 6-8 teachers. So I created a schedule where all the K-5 teachers received
additional planning and most of them had this additional planning on the day that they
did not receive a planning. After I finished this schedule, I was informed by the principal
and the music teacher that the music teacher was going to hold choir practice twice a
week for an hour during lunch, so I had to redo the schedule again.
When I started to redo the schedule, it was harder to work around the different
schedules and to make sure that the music teacher received a planning every day, a
lunch every day, and that there was time allotted for the choir practice. I was unable to
give most of the teachers the extra planning time during the days that they did receive
one but every teacher in grades K-5 does receive 5 planning times a week.

Reflections on Lessons Learned


As I was doing this activity I knew that there were people who were going to be
unhappy with the changes but the biggest surprise was the people who complained. I

did address those who had an issue with the schedule and I listened to their complaints.
I did explain why I did certain things and explained that the things that I did was to make
it better for them and for their students. I think that the next time I encounter a schedule
change like this, I will have the staff go a week without the altered schedule and then
give the new schedule the following week so that they realize what it could have been
like if someone hadnt taken the time to alter the schedule and hopefully would deter
them from complaining about things.

Artifacts
(1st Special Schedule without extra planning)

(2nd Special Schedule with additional planning and no time allotted for choir)

(3rd and final Special Schedule with extra planning and time for choir)

Music Teachers Schedule

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