Scheduling Parameters for Forest Lake Elementary - 2014-2015

There are 4 non-Spanish fourth grade classes, 1 fourth grade Spanish Immersion class, 4
non-Spanish fifth grade classes, 1 fifth grade Spanish Immersion class and 5 non-Spanish
sixth grade classes. Call these teachers 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, 4Span, 5A, 5B, 5C, 5D, 5Span, 6A,
6B, 6C, 6D, 6E
Provide a schedule for each pair of classroom teachers (or just 1 for odd groups) and an
individual schedule for each specialist (Music, PE and Media) 4AB, 4CD, 4E(Spanish),
5AB, 5CD, 5E(Spanish), 6AB, 6CD, 6E
School day is 9:00-3:30 PM and Classes do not begin until 9:30. School is on an ABCDE
schedule (not Mon-Fri).
Teachers should receive a 30 minute prep between 9 AM and 3:30 PM each day (classroom
teachers should have this between 9:30-3:00).
Teachers should receive a 30 minute duty free lunch period during the day and 15 minutes
of prep these are typically combined for classroom teachers as student lunch periods are
45 minutes long. Specialists do not need the 45 minutes put together although its okay if
it is.
Non-Spanish classes are paired for PE and Lunch and other specials.
The 4th and 5th grade Spanish Classes could be paired for PE.
In PE two classes are paired where on teacher gets a prep one day and the other is in
with the PE classes, the next day is opposite. This occurs for 4/5 of the ABCDE dates. The
fifth dates have both classroom teachers in the PE class and no PE teacher. (Provides two
preps per week per teacher).
PE will be available for .67 FTE. This can be viewed in many ways but must be 5 hours per
work per day with 90 minutes of total prep and 3.5 hours of instruction per day. These
could be varied however over the course of the week to provide the average of what is
due (i.e. PE could be scheduled differently each day just so the teacher has an average of
1.5 hours of prep per day and 3.5 hours of teaching each day). Depending on the
schedule, a 30 minute duty free lunch might/should be included and should be in normal
lunch time frame (11-1:30). There is value to not having PE as much as possible from 111:30 (this could be lunch and prep time). PE classes are 30 minutes in length.
Music for 4th and 5th grade is scheduled for two half hour blocks per week per class. This
provides two more preps (4 total with the PE preps). Times should be as consistent as
possible. Kelly Larson will be the music teacher and she will be at FLE for full days on A, B
and D days, and also in the afternoon from 12:30-3:30 (but gets her 30 minute lunch break
in there as well).
Avoid scheduling music days on back-to-back days and try to keep consistent times. Same
with PE.
Media is scheduled for one half hour block per week per class. This provides the fifth prep
of the week for teachers. Laurie Ehlers is the media teacher and will be at FLE for Full
days on D and E days. Avoid scheduling her until 10:00 AM or later with any classes.
It is okay to schedule teachers with double prep days (where then there is one day with no
prep), but no triple prep days and not two days of doubles.
6th grade music is scheduled in an hour chunk which then is a double prep day for those
teachers. One sixth grade music block is B Day from 1-2:00, the other is C day from 2:303:30. Two sixth grade classes should be assigned to one of these and three to the other.
Groups should be paired similarly for PE and lunch.
Scheduling specialists to allow more teachers at a grade level to be on prep together is
good.
Consistent blocks needed across grade levels in the morning and in the afternoon at
least an hour in the AM and PM at each grade level (excluding Spanish Immersion). More
than an hour is always good. Each grade level needs an hour block consistent for math
each day. If another hour long (or longer) block can be created for all classes that would
be best. Worst is that the second block would be grouped (2 teachers in one and 3 in

another for instance). The Spanish classes need to be included in the 2 nd non-math
blocking.
The Spanish classrooms have Spanish instruction for half of each day and should be
scheduled opposite of each other one with Spanish in the AM and one with Spanish in the
PM.
Lunch/recess in its entirety should run from around 11:00 AM-1:20 PM give or take 5-10
minutes on either end. Lunches are grouped by grade level with half the kids going to
lunch and the other half being at recess, then they flip.
If an option can be found so that the hour long blocks can coincide for all 3 grade levels or
even two, Id love to see that.
6th grade math needs to be from 9:30-10:30 each day.