As districts nationwide experiment with strategic staffing鈥攁n attempt to use teachers鈥� time in different ways to free up collaboration and reduce class size鈥攁 group of California schools wants to ensure new teaching structures relieve rather than increase teacher stress.
This fall, teams in the K-8 charter New School San Francisco and four other schools in the Bay area used data on both their students鈥� progress and their own well-being to rethink class schedules, student grouping, and flexible roles in a new potential model for strategic staffing.
Morgan Steiner, a 1st grade teacher at New School San Francisco, which is part of the pilot, said she was dubious at first.
鈥淚 was thinking, this is just going to be a lot more work. ... more meetings, more things to do,鈥� she said.
But in the pilot, the 1st grade team received training and time to review their students鈥� academic and behavior data to select a particular class period for team-teaching. They settled on 1st grade reading. The schools allowed toeachers to align their schedules during the chosen class block, in which teachers trade students, co-teach, and bring in additional support, with an eye to both speeding up student learning and reducing teachers鈥� paperwork.
After implementing the team period this spring, Steiner said she鈥檚 now convinced of the model鈥檚 power. Co-teaching reduced her reading class size from 31 to 26, Steiner said, and cut her workload even more. Rather than differentiating every lesson, she and her colleagues plan groups based on the most challenging skills and switch them each week. Her take-home lesson planning for reading, which previously involved differentiating lessons for six different ability levels, is now 鈥渧irtually nothing.鈥�
It took a few weeks to adapt to new routines, but teachers and students have been 鈥渞eally motivated by the challenge,鈥� Steiner said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing to think about, compared with how they were acting before.鈥�
Collaborative teaching models growing
Strategic staffing鈥攊n which schools give schedule flexibility and sometimes differentiated pay for teams of classroom 糖心动漫vlog鈥攈as gained ground in many states as a way to provide more professional development for young teachers and retain 糖心动漫vlog longer.
There are no national data on how many schools use strategic staffing. More than 1,100 schools across 18 states use two of . In February, the federal Education Department released , encouraging districts to use Title II money to test strategic staffing models.
Now others are piloting home-grown versions, like these Bay Area schools.
The pilot is an initiative of the Bay Area Collaborative for Reimagining Teaching, a coalition of eight charter and district leaders, as well as local government and education groups.
鈥淲e want to give teachers ways to think about strategic staffing from both a structural perspective as well as a collaborative learning perspective,鈥� said said Courtney Ochi, the senior director of Thrive, a San Diego-based nonprofit working with the pilot schools.
Beatrice Viramontes, the executive director of the Bay Area Teach For America program, which is part of the pilot, said teachers in pilot schools have reported higher morale, and the group is also tracking whether teacher collaboration reduces teacher turnover.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of power in teachers feeling agency in what they鈥檙e co-designing and implementing,鈥� Viramontes said. 鈥淭hey feel invested and inspired to bring in other colleagues.鈥�
It鈥檚 been critical for teachers and administrators to keep their own well-being in mind when planning schedule or staffing changes, Viramontes said. The teacher teams adjust roles and duties both to play to teachers鈥� strengths and support teachers鈥� work-life balance, and they have received ongoing professional development in managing team dynamics.
Steiner, for example, said she has struggled to meet rising student literacy needs on her own in the last few years. This fall, a small group of students knew their letter sounds but couldn鈥檛 blend them well. Others could sound out their words but were still working towards grade-level reading fluency鈥攔eading without a lot of stopping and starting. Still others read well above grade level鈥攁nd often acted out in class after completing their work faster than the rest.
Now, during the reading block, Steiner teaches all students reading at or above grade level, with students who need practice with specific skills divvied up among another teacher, a teaching assistant, an interventionist and even, once a week, a speech therapist.
鈥淭here鈥檚 an impact for teachers鈥� well-being and sustainability [in the profession], but there鈥檚 also then an impact for students,鈥� Ochi said. 鈥淲hen your teachers are less burned out, they鈥檙e able to provide [students] with more support. When teacher roles are differentiated, it鈥檚 easier to have more personalized and more rigorous learning because someone can have more capacity to go in depth.鈥�
