To prepare

• Review this week's Learning Resources.

By Day 3

Post your responses to the following:

• One strength of block scheduling from the perspective of a teacher, student, and principal/school leader
• One challenge of block scheduling from the perspective of a teacher, student, and principal/school leader
• Instructional approaches you suggest be included in training teachers who are new to block scheduling
• Ways you, as an administrator, would address possible concerns from those teachers who might not directly benefit from a block scheduling format

Be sure to support your ideas by connecting them to the week's Learning Resources, as well as to something you have read, heard, seen, or experienced.

This weeks learning resource:

Impact of the 4 A/B Block Schedule on Teacher Load

Adopting the 4 A/B block schedule causes some teacher loads to increase and some teacher loads to decrease. With this schedule, science and social studies teachers would teach three groups of 25 students on the "A" day and three different groups of 25 students on the "B" day. Therefore, the load for science and social studies teachers would be 150 students (six different classes with 25 students each). Students would attend science and social studies classes for 90 minutes every other day.

Impact of the 4 A/B Block Schedule on Students' Class Time in Science and Social Studies

Adopting the 4 A/B Block Schedule would increase the amount of time students spend in reading and math classes, but decrease the amount of time students spend in science and social studies classes. With the current LMS schedule, students spend 55 minutes per day (550 minutes every two weeks) in each subject area. With the 4 A/B Block Schedule, students would spend 90 minutes each day (900 minutes every 2 weeks) in reading and math and 90 minutes every other day (450 minutes every 2 weeks) in science and social studies.

Non-Instructional Positions

Full-Time Equivalents

Salary for one unit

Assistant Principal 170,000

Cafeteria Worker 2. 520,000

Counselor 370,000

Custodian 337,000

Diagnostician157,000

Family Support140,000

Instructional Aide1430,000

Librarian165,000

Library Aide 230,000

Nurse160,000

Occupational Therapist160,000

Office Aide330,000

Principal 1101,000

Psychologist 175,000

Secretary 235,000

Security Officer 141,000

Social Worker 160,000

Speech Specialist 165,000

Teacher 24 (8 teachers per grade level) 55,288

Total58