Responsive Scheduling

The past few years have reminded us to be flexible, innovative, and thoughtful as we consider our scholars’ futures. In spring of 2021 we planned for a large daily schedule change to accommodate responsive scheduling focused on student academic support during the school day (Raider Time) and weekly staff professional learning (Collaborative Time). These changes to the schedule are based on the need to improve the predictable outcomes for student achievement by investing in staff learning and providing students with time during the school day to access academic support. This effort in personalizing learning is how we are living out our equity vision in the daily schedule.

What is Raider Time?

• Academic Support and Social-Emotional Learning Time during the School Day
• Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 2:10-2:40pm

What is the Purpose of Raider Time?

• Allows all students access to Academic Support Time during the school day
• Allows students to get Social/Emotional support during the school day
• Allows students to socialize during their school day
• Allows clubs, activities and athletics to host during the school day options
• Allows licensed staff time, during the school day, to sort students based on learning targets, common assessments, and/or standards to intervene when students don’t get it and when they do (enrichment/extension)

How Did We Start Raider Time?

Started with… 

• Student Voice
• Teacher Voice / PLC Lead (Teacher Leader) Voice
• Natural next step of our PLC/Collaborative Team work
• Visited other schools
• Researched online responsive scheduler

During our planning we reached out to many stakeholder groups for feedback. Implementing an intervention time at the High School level is not something new in the metro area. We collaborated with multiple local school districts to learn from them what works and what might fit best for Roseville. We learned from other High Schools that an online responsive scheduler was a key component to our success so we investigated multiple options. We also considered the timing in the day, the frequency of intervention times and how to balance this with the need for additional time for staff to plan and prepare in the professional learning communities weekly. It was at this time that we started planning for returning to school from blended and distance learning and we knew that our challenge was to return to better, not the same as pre-pandemic. Our incoming Superintendent was fully on board with our concept.

We discussed the need for student academic support during the school day and collaborated with student groups and parents/caregivers. The parent and caregiver town hall meetings were positive and the student feedback was central to our planning. The students were simply excited about the possibilities to continue office hours that were held during the pandemic into our return to better.

We met with AVID student leadership, Student Council, the Captains’ Council and students from multiple cultural clubs. For those groups, we asked, “Do you, as students, feel like you get enough time to get support from your teachers during a typical school year?” The answer was across-the-board, “Nope.” Overwhelmingly, their feedback on the new schedule was positive, as they tended to see this as a college-level atmosphere. One student wrote, “I think this is a logical step following how independent students have become in distance learning.” Of the athletes, they appreciated the idea of having availability to work with their teachers without missing practice by staying after school.

We discussed the schedule and the academic support time with teachers, department leads, curriculum leads, the instructional leadership team and Education Minnesota-Roseville. Teachers felt that continuing the weekly meetings that were started during distance learning to be imperative to the success of collaborative teams as they work on frequent, recurrent data analysis cycles. We also saw great intervention work from teachers as they offered office hours during the distance learning schedule. In receiving feedback, there was a lot of positivity about the potential that this plan has, especially with having the uninterrupted Wednesday morning time for collaborative teams to work.

Implementation included logistical training on the online responsive scheduler, collaboration during Collaborative time (How do you utilize Raider Time collaboratively to intervene/extend learning?), feedback from students and staff each trimester with smart improvements each trimester based on student and staff ideas/solutions. There have been consistent and frequent email communications and support provided. We created robust professional development, FAQ documents, schoology and newsletter communications as well as social media posts to communicate throughout the implementation stage.

How do Teachers choose which students need academic intervention?

During the 1.5 hours of weekly collaborative time, teachers work together to determine standards, assessments and interventions. They consider how to make their grading both guaranteed and viable as well as accurate, bias-resistant and motivational. Then, the online responsive scheduler allows teachers to “ping” students and prioritizes the academic interventions above clubs and other choices the students have each day. The purpose of this weekly time is to positively impact our racially predictable student achievement through professional learning and collaboration. Our teachers ask questions based on Khalifa’s (Khalifa, M. (2019). Culturally responsive school leadership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.) expansion on the classic Four Questions (DuFour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.):

How to Make PLCs More Culturally Responsive

Common Driving Questions of PLCs	Sample Subquestions
What do we want all students to learn?	Does what we want students to learn include minoritized communities’ knowledge? Have we asked the community what students should learn? Does the knowledge connect to the communities and experiences of minoritized students? Is what we want students to learn (i.e., knowledge) beneficial to minoritized communities?
How will we know if and when they have learned it?	Are the scales and rubrics used culturally responsive? Are the questions culturally biased? What are the non-traditional ways of measuring the knowledge of minoritized students? What are the best ways for our students to show what they know?
How will we teach it?	Are the instructional methods culturally responsive and inclusive? How are parents and community members used to help connect instruction to student communities/lives?
How will we respond if some students do not learn? How will we respond if the students have already learned?	How will we use critical self-reflection techniques to understand when and why some minoritized students are not responding to our instruction and content?How will we take responsibility, individually and collectively, if minoritized students are not learning?

* Khalifa, M. (2019). Culturally responsive school leadership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. 

We have also invested our monthly professional development time in interrogating our grading practices and are using Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman as a resource for how we will continue to learn and grow as professionals to create more personalized learning for our students that is culturally relevant, responsive and rigorous. This work is helping us improve our grading practices so that they are accurate, bias-resistant and motivational.

*https://www.pleasantonusd.net/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=306345&type=d&pREC_ID=2290188

How students spend their time…a snapshot of one week:

Academic Intervention: Help Session, Retakes, Relearning, Individual and Small group support, Sectionals for Music, Woods Lab, SPED Case Management Check-ins

Clubs: Nepali, Latino, BSU, GSA/Queer, K’nyaw, Anime, Hack, Ukelele, Peb Haiv, Quiz Bowl, Math Team, Girls in STEM, Coding, DECA, Prom Committee, Powerlifting, Ultimate Frisbee, ACE (Architecture, Construction, Engineering), Philosophy, Theater Games, eSports

Social Emotional: Yoga, Guided Meditation, Coloring, Board Games, Therapy & Counselor Appointments, AVID Mentee/Mentor, SEL groups, Volunteering, Soccer, Volleyball, Basketball, Quiet space

What do the students say about the benefits of Raider Time:

• Supports my mental health
• Stress free ½ hour to my school day
• I can get help from my teacher before the school bus leaves
• Allows me to do retakes during the day
• Chance to form community
• Grow relationships with Teachers
• Get help you need without going out of your way (its easy)
• 1:1 Teacher time
• Time to see friends (a lot don’t have classes with friends)
• More options this year… I love basketball