PCM proposes Monday 90-minute late starts next year

PCM Community School District educators are proposing a big change to the school schedule for the 2018-19 school year. To give teachers a consistent, designated time for collaboration every week, administrators have asked the school board to consider approving 90-minute late start on Mondays.

To offset the weekly 90-minute late start, the proposed schedule adds 10 minutes to each school day. Tuesdays through Fridays students would begin at 8:05 a.m. and end the day at 3:15 p.m.

The first day of school would be Aug. 28, mostly to accommodate for ongoing building construction, with May 24 being the last day of the school year. The semester lengths would be equal. Even with the proposed 90-minute delayed start, the tentative schedule adds only one hour to the school year at 1,132 hours.

At Monday’s regular school board meeting in Monroe, PCM Superintendent Brad Jermeland admitted the change will need buy-in from parents and require adjustment in transportation and childcare requirements, but he believes better teacher preparedness will translate into higher student performance.

“I understand this is a change for parents, but in the long run if we can increase student achievement for their children, so when they graduate and complete each grade level they’re performing at a higher level than they may have been, that’s the trade-off,” Jermeland said.

The added teacher collaboration time on Mondays is based largely on research conducted by Professor John Haddie, director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute and the University of Melbourne in Australia. PCM teachers will work collectively to develop curriculum in a professional learning community, or PLC, and use real-time data they gather to better student learning.

A group of PCM teachers and principals have been presenting the collaborative teacher training model at school board meetings since December, after attending a recent PLC conference in Minneapolis.

The Monday 90-minute delayed start will give PCM teachers 60 to 70 minutes every week to work and communicate with each other. They will develop curriculum across a grade level and make sure it connects and flows with what the student will be learning as they advance through their PCM careers.

Jermeland said teachers will use this time to share with each other what teaching techniques are working and which are not.

At Monday’s meeting, several PCM teachers presented the PLC model to the board and lobbied for the schedule change. Bridget Martin is an English/language arts teacher at PCM Middle School, as well as the PCM varsity girls track coach. She compared the amount of time a teacher prepares for their class to the amount of time a track team prepares for a meet.

Martin said she spends about 74 percent of the time as a track coach preparing athletes for competition. In the classroom, she said PCM teachers only have about 24 percent of their day to prepare for their class.

Martin said rushed teacher prep time is equivalent to rushing through a fundamentals drill on the track.

“I rush through a hand-off practice, what’s that going to result in? Possibly a dropped baton. I rush through a block start practice, that could result in a false start. ... The result of that is zero points for my team. Zero points is not going to result in overall improvement or overall success of my team,” Martin said.

Monroe Elementary kindergarten teacher Heather Fenton said to attract quality teachers, the consistent protected time for development within the school day is important because many will be coming from other districts were the practice is already in place, and it will increasingly become a trait looked for in desirable workplaces for educators.

“As we’re asking for a change in calender, and change can be hard, we know that other districts have been able to figure that out and other challenges that may come up,” she said.

She pointed to neighboring Pella, Carlisle and Newton CSDs that have weekly early outs for PLC training, and schools such as Knoxville, Pleasantville and Baxter CSD have weekly late starts.

Jermeland told the board he is planning a campaign to communicate the proposal to parents, making the new schedule available online and drafting op-eds in the newspapers to further explain the necessity for a dedicated time for teacher collaboration.

Any call setting the district calendar lies with the school board. The board set a public hearing for Feb. 19 during its next regularly scheduled school board meeting to hear from parents and the public before making a final decision. The 7 p.m. meeting will be in the PCM Middle School media center.

“I know families on an emergency basis are able to accommodate late starts. If we have a calendar that communicates late starts, families should be able to adjust,” Jermeland said. “I know this proposal is a big change for everybody. The more it can be communicated the better.”

Jermeland said they are still working out details, but staff will examine possible accommodations the district could make for parents, such as having associates on hand to provide supervision for Monday morning drop-offs.

The school board agreed Monday transportation and childcare would be the biggest hurdles. But they agreed the payoff of better student achievement would be worth the change. Board member Alvin Keuning said he could support the schedule if it provides parents with a consistent early start every week and did not keep parents guessing.

Board member Nicole Stafford thinks the overall idea could have dividends.

“It’s not just the hours (students) receive, it’s the quality of instruction,” Stafford said. “As preparation progresses we should see positive growth, and that’s the goal.”

Contact Mike Mendenhall at mmendenhall@mypraireicitynew.com