|
|
SUPERINTENDENT'S |
May 2008
Early Release Days - Why We Have Them
THE WORK TEACHERS DO—Schools are such wonderful places. Students come each day ready to learn and are excited about seeing friends, playing, and seeing their teacher. Teachers greet students each day with a warm welcome and an energetic plan for each classroom learning activity. And while recess continues to be one of the students’ favorite subjects, reading, math, writing, science, art, PE, music and social studies all come in a close second. Each day is a well orchestrated symphony of transitions between classroom activities, PE, lunch, recess, music, computer lab, library, and other school activities. Teachers work hard to plan for each day, and adjust to meet the surprises that can interrupt the most well intentioned lesson plan.
Throughout each day, and each month, one of our biggest challenges as a district is to find blocks of time that enables teachers to plan cohesive units and learning activities, as well as collaborate and communicate with grade level and subject level partners and other staff members. This challenge led the district to incorporate an early release schedule which provides elementary teachers an afternoon each month, the opportunity to work collaboratively, monitor and implement curriculum, align instruction with state standards, and prepare quality lesson plans. This planning time has given our teachers the opportunity to align curriculum to state standards, develop assessments to monitor student progress, review student work and build interventions for students who need more assistance, and provide feedback to students about the work they have completed.
We are excited to have this time to improve our instruction, and expect that through effective planning students will reap the benefits of more powerful teaching. For students, we realize that an afternoon without school is a chance to play and have fun, for parents we realize that it can be difficult to juggle schedules and find child care, and we appreciate your support as it allows teachers, and schools, the opportunity to ensure school improvement goals are met, lessons and instruction are planned, and student learning is maximized. We greatly appreciate this gift of time and are much better prepared to meet the needs of students because of our work during the early release days.
