Planning Time and Scheduled Meetings

The planning time and meeting structure at Fort Hill allow for teachers to engage in professional dialogue on a regular basis in a variety of groupings. In addition to the daily and weekly schedules, Fort Hill closes for Professional Days for a week in August, four days in March, approximately once a month during the academic-year, and for a two days during the summer program. In addition, planning time is allocated on an ad hoc basis when the rotating teachers are available.

Planning Time

Daily Planning Time

The classroom supervising teachers’ schedules include one hour of collaborative planning time from 3:00 – 4:00 every day with additional time as often as the rotating teacher schedules allow. The studio supervising teachers have an alternate hour each day for independent planning. The purpose of the shared planning time is to plan a cohesive, integrated program based on the philosophy of the program and to work collaboratively to analyze documentation and share resources and ideas.

Extra Planning Time

If there are no teacher absences, the rotating teachers follow an alternating schedule to provide supervising teachers with additional planning time. Two classroom supervising teachers share one day each week on which rotating teachers who are not needed to substitute are available to the teachers. The level coordinators each have an additional day. The studio teachers and teachers alternate the afternoon time.

The assistant director develops the schedule and the office coordinator and teachers document the allocation of time. Rotating teachers check the book each day and follow the schedule for substitutions.

 

The teachers:

• communicate with the office so the administration when enrollment is low in a classroom to allow for additional extra planning time.
• document the date and number of hours they use as extra planning time on the clipboard on the table in the teachers’ room.

If more than two rotating teachers are available, the administration schedules the additional rotating teachers’ time.

A sample classroom supervising schedule is as follows:

 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
I/T Level Coordinator	Group A co-teacher	Group B co-teacher	East Room	P/S Level Coordinator
Group S	Group B co-teacher	Group A co-teacher	South Room	North Room

 

The assistant director develops a schedule for the afternoon time to evenly distribute the days among classroom teachers and studio supervising teachers.

Extra Planning Time

If there are no teacher absences, the rotating teachers follow an alternating schedule to provide supervising teachers with additional planning time. The assistant director develops the schedule and the office coordinator and supervising teachers document the allocation of time. Rotating teachers check the book each day and follow the schedule for substitutions and check in with the 2 “Teachers-of-the-Day” regarding the “extra time.”

 

the teacher is offered the time to allocate as they choose. For example, they may choose to have an extra person in the room to support individual or project work, they may leave the classroom to work on planning, they may ask one of the teachers to work on something outside the classroom, they may choose to observe in another classroom or ask a teacher to observe in another room, they may choose to observe their own classroom to fulfill their supervising duties, or, if two teachers are out at the same time, they may plan collaborative work. I strongly encourage everyone to use some of the time to visit other classrooms, particularly at a different level.

Two classroom supervising teachers share one day each week on which rotating teachers who are not needed to substitute are available to the teachers. The level coordinators each have an additional day.

 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
I/T Level Coordinator	Group A co-teacher	Group B co-teacher	East Room	P/S Level Coordinator
Group S	Group A co-teacher	Group B co-teacher	South Room	North Room

 

The two “Teachers-of-the-Day” work together to determine how to use the available extra time, communicate and document the plan. The teachers:

 

• communicate with the office so the administration can keep records of how time is used.
• document the date and number of hours they use as extra planning time on the clipboard on the table in the teachers’ room.

If more than two rotating teachers are available, the administration schedules the additional rotating teachers’ time.

 

Scheduled Meetings

All-School Meetings

The entire staff meets as a whole group on most professional days to discuss school-wide issues, engage in professional development, and participate in community-building events.  Minutes are posted in Google Drive in the Teacher Folder.

Teachers and Director Meetings

The director meets with teachers as a group on most professional days.

Supervising Teacher Team Meetings

Supervising teachers meet with the director and assistant director from 3:00 – 4:00 on the first and third Wednesday of every month. The agenda and minutes of the meetings are posted in Fort Hill Teacher Folder on Google Drive. The agenda for each meeting includes a rotating schedule for classroom supervising teachers to share a current long-term investigation or project.

Supervising Teacher Level Meetings

Supervising teachers meet with as a level of supervising teachers from 3:00 – 4:00 on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month. The level coordinator plans the agenda and coordinates a system to submit minutes to the assistant director, who publishes them on Google Docs.

Level Coordinator Meetings

The director meets with the level coordinators monthly.

Classroom Team Meetings

Each classroom team meets from 3:15 – 4:15 once a week. The assistant director publishes an alternate staffing schedule for classroom team meetings at the beginning of the academic-year.

The afternoon supervising teachers (the studio teachers) meet with the afternoon teams one morning each week. the Include studio teacher meetings, how coverage is planned, minutes, link to form for documenting meetings

Teachers may need to work mandatory overtime to attend these meetings.

Supervising teacher responsible for maintaining record of minutes for weekly meeting – agenda form on Google Docs – post on Google Docs? Accessible in classroom

Supervision Meetings

Supervisors plan to meet with those they supervise at least once a month to review progress towards goals and individual performance. Include link to supervision section with performance reviews, goals, etc.

Insert quotes, e.g., nothing without joy, the foundations of a good community, vision statement in each section,