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What were the challenges that you faced in making the decision?

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What were the challenges that you faced in making the decision?

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Original issue: Lack of time for teacher collaboration in the schedule and also inequitable prep times for academic and unified arts teachers.

1. The challenge in making the decision to change to different schedule required a systemic change to how our school operated, including rotation of student schedules as well as teacher schedules. Difficulty in planning for special education services that must be legally met, equitable prep and collaboration time for all teachers, no matter of tenure/experience or subject area. To further complicate the process, we had to make sure there was time also for special pull outs like band, choir, and intervention labs.

2. Given what had worked in the past, there were certain rules and policies that we wanted to continue as part of the school’s norms and expectations. Also another consideration was times for required classes as mandated by our district’s central administration. This past year having follow certain COVID guidelines and safety protocols also made it rather difficult to implement a new schedule.

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How did you, knowingly/unknowingly use the Bardach method to get to Step 7?

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How did you, knowingly/unknowingly use the Bardach method to get to Step 7?

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1. I had to work collaboratively with our administrative team as part of my leadership practicum. Being a part of these discussions, we went through most of the Bardach steps. The most important step was offering different schedule designs, much like policy alternatives, where we would deliberate the trade offs and determine which option was the best. Going back to the original issue, time for collaboration in teacher schedules and equitable prep time for all subjects was one of the main criteria for any of the alternatives that we examined. We also made use of quantitative data, like enrollment numbers and teachers available for each grade and subject to help make our determinations of what made the most sense logistically.

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How did “public opinion” shape your analysis or decision? 

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How did “public opinion” shape your analysis or decision? 

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1. Being that we needed to take into account balancing the needs of both teachers and students, it was important that our final decision did not make trade offs that drastically affected one group or subgroup. At the middle school level, students unfortunately did not get too much choice in the classes that they had take, which made it easier to figure out the scheduling for classes. With the specialty classes, like band and choir for instance, we did take into account the teacher’s recommendations for students that would be enrolled in those specific classes. However, there were occasions where enrollment for a certain class was low and we had to make the decisions whether it made sense or not to offer that section.

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In hindsight, were there missteps in your policy analysis?

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In hindsight, were there missteps in your policy analysis?

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1. Communication was key to preventing missteps in the new scheduling policy. Since we were transitioning to a new schedule rotation, it was crucial that we were able to communicate clearly to both students and teachers what their daily schedule looked like. There were instances where our bounded rationality did result in a misstep with certain special education students not having their services met during their school day.

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What lessons will you keep in mind when making future decisions? 

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What lessons will you keep in mind when making future decisions? 

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1. As a school leader, there will be many different types of policies that need to be implemented and it is essential to have a clear understanding of how a new policy or change in policy could have a major effect on the day to day operates of the school. There are also so many different roles and responsibilities that are fulfilled by different staff members that it may happen that their perspective is not taken into account when it comes to the decision making process.

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1. In future decisions, such as implementing a new scheduling policy, I think it will be helpful to have a committee with members from different areas of the school voice their opinion on a change in policy. This can hopefully limit the possibility of resistance to a new policy and meet the projected outcomes. From my experience working on a committee, it is important to have a focused voice from the facilitator and agreed on norms and expectations for the vision and goal. Committees work best when the members feel that they do have a voice and the work that they are putting into it is actually having an impact on policies that are implemented at the school.