Phew, after weeks of administrators being on vacation, I finally got my finalized schedule for the upcoming school year! I had it at the end of the year, but there was a conflict with a high school and elementary class. Consequently, decisions couldn't be made about my schedule until the district figured out if they were hiring a 3rd gym/health teacher on full-time or part-time, and administrators were out of the building at different times due to vacations and family needs. Either way, here it is! (And boy it looks hectic to me too...)
I will now only have the elementary grades once a 6-day cycle for art. I'm a little sad about that, but the prospect of getting back to teaching high school is finally starting to get exciting for me! I currently am scheduled to have two art 7 classes, two studio classes and an elective. If I can grab the attention of at least 6 students from study halls, I have permission to create a second elective, which would happen opposite of the scheduled elective and then my lunch period will be moved. I've had a lot of 8th grade students mention that they wish they had art in 8th grade, so I'm hoping they have study hall then and I can snag some!
Oh boy oh boy...let the planning begin!
Hubby and I spent another two hours organizing in the high school art room last night. I'm pretty happy with results. I have a drawer of old paint brushes to sort through and a tall, double cabinet of supplies left to sort through and I'm done! They are scheduled to strip and wax the floors in that room next week, so I'll have a rest before my supplies are delivered to the room and I can start putting things away and decorating the cupboards and walls...let the Pinterest surfing begin!
Holy Cow, you have up to 7 classes in one day? How long are your classes? Good luck, it's going to be busy but it's going to be fun teaching high school :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a crazy schedule! And like ArtMuse said, you have days with 7 classes? And six of them different preps? Where the heck is your union? Do you have any contract parameters for # of classes, teaching minutes, prep time, etc? And if you add another elective, you will have EIGHT classes, SEVEN different preps on day 1!? That's insane!! Who the heck designed this schedule? I spent years on a scheduling committee, advocating for having classes 'stacked' in a way that grouped together classes of the same grade level. It really helped. I highly recommend it. How long are these classes, by the way? Are the elementary and secondary classes the same length?
ReplyDeleteAnd - you've even talking about the high school art room - but you have back-to-back high school and elementary classes - will you be running back and forth between two rooms? How do you prepare for that? When I taught both elementary and secondary, it was either all in the same classroom making it easy to flip back and forth, or in two buildings at different times of the day.
Plus, how long will you be out for maternity leave? How will a sub handle that crazy schedule? Does anyone in your district realize how insane this schedule is besides you? Or do they just see your 'free' time on day three and think that is ample compensation? Oh - by the way - the schedule should NOT say 'free' on it during those times; it should say PREP, which indicates that you are NOT free during that time; instead you are prepping materials and lessons, assessing student work, hanging displays, calling parents, planning events, attending meetings, etc (and you are pregnant, so lets not forget to add in time for visits to the bathroom!)
Yes, according to our contract special area teachers are allowed to teach 7 classes. Classes are 40 minutes with 3 minutes in between. The high school room and elementary room are all in the same building, just different hallways, and I can opt to teach out of only one classroom if I want to. The good thing about having this many classes is that I don't have to do any extra duties, such as study hall or lunch duty, and I'm perfectly okay with that. According to our contract as well, the classroom teachers must have their prep periods at the same time to allocate for grade level planning and meetings, so we can't do all 1st grade classes on the same day at different times, which other schools do in the area.
DeleteWhoops, I didn't see that on day 1...guess I can't do another elective... :( I will only be out for 6-8 weeks on maternity leave as that's all the time I have saved up (unless I'm put on bed rest and I take from the sick bank). Two weeks of my maternity leave falls on the Christmas break, so I essentially will only have a sub for 4 weeks.
Oh, students leave on the buses at 2:45 and teachers are required to stay in the building until 3:15, so that is essentially extra prep time as well. Two days a cycle are administrative time where the administrators can hold meetings after school but the other four days are for teachers.
And I can say that elementary teachers who are habitual drop off early/pick up late teachers will get a rude awakening this year because I will be taking advantage of those 3 minutes in between! I'll be sending their kids back to them right on time if they aren't there to pick them up.
DeleteWOW!!! Quite the schedule....color coding is a must!
ReplyDelete