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Schools Alter Development Day Plans: Leaders Say Changes Being Made to Address Parents' Complaints

Posted on: Sunday, 14 May 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Karen Bair, The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.

May 14--The Rock Hill school district is scaling back plans for teacher collaboration days in response to parents' concerns about late school starts and early school dismissal times on those days.

The district had approved a plan to let teachers meet twice each month for staff development time aimed at helping teachers improve techniques and coordinate teaching. Under that plan, middle and high schools would've started late on those days, and elementary schools would dismiss at noon three times during the year to allow for the collaboration.

But after feedback from parents, the plan has been tweaked.

Now, instead of meeting from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. two days a month, secondary school teachers will meet one Wednesday a month at that time eight times during the school year. Elementary schools will still dismiss at noon three times during the year so teachers can share and collaborate.

School buses will deliver secondary students at 10:30 a.m. and pick up elementary school children at noon on those days.

School principals also will ask parents for whom it creates a hardship to contact them. The district is studying the cost of hiring a bank of substitutes for students who must arrive and depart at the usual time on those days.

"We will communicate with parents to see who has hardships," schools Superintendent Randy Bridges said. "We don't know how many students we will have. We will find something structured and meaningful for them. The teachers can provide something."

Attempting to give teachers more time

Current faculty in-service days are arranged around the conclusion of nine-week grading periods. Teachers use the bulk of that time to record grades and meet with parents. Some professional development is scheduled on those days, but it is minimal and sporadic, school administrators say.

Teachers sometimes meet after school to collaborate, but many supervise extracurricular activities then.

"I don't know that any of us are as focused after a full day of work and then top it off with a couple of hours of professional development," Bridges said. "I think improving your skills in any profession is important. This is a constant, identified time that principals can work with faculty and staff."

It is designed to give teachers a chance to share their successful programs with one another, for teachers within a school to integrate classes in different subjects through a common theme and to enable teachers from different schools to collaborate on teaching techniques.

"The slate is clean," Bridges said. "We can do all kinds of creative things we think will enhance the skills of our teachers."

Professional development will not interfere with classroom time, school officials say, because Rock Hill's elementary school instructional hours already exceed state requirements. "Flex time" is already part of the middle school schedule, and high schools will be losing no instructional time.

"If nothing else comes from this, it will be that we responded to the parents," school board Chairman Bob Norwood said.

Board member Walter Brown agreed with Norwood's hopes the program eventually can build back to 16 instead of eight development days a year at the secondary level.

"We depend on a partnership with parents," board member Jason Silverman said. "To strengthen that partnership, we've made some adjustments. Of course, every relationship requires reciprocity."

Norwood said board members already know "half the people in the community are mad at us at all times."

"I'd just like to get back to equilibrium," he said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Herald, Rock Hill, S.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Herald

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