New Rotational Schedule for the 2019-20 School Year
Dear St. Michael’s Families,
With the input and approval of the faculty and staff, the Board of Directors, and Head-Elect Bob Gregg, we are excited to announce that St. Michael’s will adopt a new K-8 seven-day rotating schedule in the upcoming 2019-2020 school year.
Our new schedule was made possible by our move to ONE campus. To develop the schedule, St. Michael’s worked with Independent School Management (ISM), the industry leader in independent school scheduling. In that effort, we sought a schedule that:
■ places students’ needs first,
■ optimizes learning opportunities, and
■ maximizes teachers’ collaborative planning time.
Key benefits of a seven-day schedule include the following.
It is predictable. We can plan for when courses happen rather than missing classes for holidays and special schedules, which tend to disproportionately impact courses meeting on certain days (e.g., Mondays for holidays).
It is calmer.
Middle School courses will meet for five, rather than six, slightly longer (60-minute) classes per day.
■ Longer periods allow students and teachers to dive deeply into their work, and also make it more feasible to get outside and take advantage of our campus.
■ Fewer periods per day means the most a Middle School student has to prepare for on any day is five academic courses, versus six.
■ Fewer, more predictable, transitions mean less stress for students and easier preparation for teachers since all the class periods for grades 5-8 are the same length.
Many Lower School students will benefit from reduced transition time thanks to scheduling back-to-back enrichment courses in Singleton Hall.
There is variety. This is true day to day and week to week. Particularly in the Middle School, students and teachers will see each other at different times of the day throughout the rotation. This means every teacher will see each student at their best (and worst) times to learn.
Two programs piloted in 2018-19 have been accommodated.
■ Smaller class sizes in grades 5-8. Some may have already begun to see this during the 2018-19 school year. The new schedule ensures that the benefits witnessed during this pilot will be secured for years to come.
■ Spanish will remain a core Middle School class. Thus more students will graduate having completed Spanish 2. Currently 25% to 33% do this.
■ The Middle School will now have advisory and study hall EVERY DAY. This will increase students’ access to academic and other support, as well as deepen the important relationships between students and their advisors.
■ PE will be co-ed and meet by grade level across the entire school. This ends the model put in place when the Middle School separated from the Lower School and follows how most schools deliver physical education. It also reduces Middle School PE class sizes from over 70 to about 50.
While a 7-day rotating schedule might feel at first like a significant change, and in some ways it is, many aspects of the academic schedule remain the same.
■ The school day begins and ends at the same time (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.)
■ Lower School (K-4) teachers will still schedule math and language arts at their discretion, as they do now. This aligns well with the migration to the workshop model of instruction the faculty has been working on through its professional development.
■ The Lower School still has consistent times for enrichment classes.
■ The Middle School still has a 15-minute morning break and a 40-minute recess/lunch.
■ The Middle School still has 5 minutes at the beginning of the day to gather.
■ Equitable planning time has been maintained, with most homeroom and core teachers averaging about 75 minutes per day.
■ Lower School student performances will be scheduled primarily on Thursdays and Fridays, depending on which rotation day (A-day, B-day, etc.).
What does the schedule look like?
Rather than working Monday through Friday on a five-day schedule, we will work A-Day through G-Day. The 7-day cycle will guide scheduling for all K-8 classes and activities, including chapel (always on C-Day), throughout the school day (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.).
