Four minutes per day over one school week equals 20 minutes of time.
Beginning last Monday, the three Traverse City Area Public Schools high schools — Central, West and Traverse City High School — each started their day four minutes earlier and will do so for the rest of the school year.
Multiply the 20 minutes a week by the remaining weeks in the semester and the early start times allow the schools to carve out time for three morning in-service sessions for teachers. These sessions, scheduled for the third Monday morning in March, April and May, will be used to align curriculum with new graduation requirements, explore alternate schedules, develop and refine course syllabi and formative assessments and share best practices, noted Alison Arnold, communications director with the district.
An idea the district has been kicking around, this pilot program will also be evaluated for future application beyond the remainder of the school year. The earlier start times do not affect students who are also enrolled at the Career Technical Center or Northwestern Michigan College.
"We've looked at this kind of alternate schedule and are piloting it at the high school level to see if teachers and students like it and families can adjust to it,” said Arnold, adding that the district plans to reassess it at the end of the year.
The changed start times have a minimal impact on busing, an important factor for the district as well as families.
On the days of an in-service session, which will delay school's opening by about two hours, students may still arrive at the regular start time if they want or need to. The library and cafeteria will be open for their use until school begins.
Principal Joe Tibaldi of West High School said that Monday morning, the first day of the new earlier start time, the school operated as normal.
"We're hoping this is a new direction we need to go,” he noted. "We'll know more later.”
Districts state-wide are wrestling to assimilate the state's new graduation requirements, with ripples spreading through curricula and grades. The state did not allot any funds to help with this process.
"The new requirements require us to take a look at how courses are delivered and we want to make sure that students can maintain the rich elective choices that we've had in the past, which may require that we adopt a different school schedule in coming years,” said Arnold. "Teachers need time to plan what that may look like.”
The three monthly planning sessions this spring let teachers address and plan for the changes without impacting their instructional time. By using time gained from the earlier starting times, teachers do not need to take time off to attend meetings. This provides classroom continuity to both students and teachers.
"A really important benefit I think that comes through to our students, too, is that by implementing the once-a-month professional development days for teachers, we eliminate the need for substitutes in the classroom,” said Arnold. "Teachers are there with their students most of the time and we're not having to pull a teacher.”