The question: if you come from a 900-students-plus elementary school on block
scheduling, how do you handle the schedule so that you get adequate lesson-time and
provide open-access time?
The background: I came into my current school back in January with a schedule that
had just been changed (for the 2nd time in a year). Our school apparently went to
block scheduling and has a 7-day rotation for "specials" (i.e., gym, art, music).
To try and get each class into the library for a lesson and for a checkout period,
AND allow for open access times, it was decided to put the library on a 14-day
rotation. The school was then divided roughly in half and, for the first 7 days,
for example, K-3 would get their 40-minute lesson time while 4-5 would get only a
15-min. checkout time. The NEXT 7 days, that would be reversed, so that those who
only got 15-min. checkout times would get a 40-minute lesson. We have about 900
kids and no library assistant.
To me, coming into this new, the schedule seems to be a good compromise b/c it gets
everyone into the library at least once every 7 days, and there's enough open
access time to off-set that and allow times for special library sessions to be
scheduled as needed. As you can probably guess, the schedule isn't ideal, but is
much better than the previous iteration which was a 21-day schedule that just
didn't get people into the library often enough for classroom or library teaching
needs. The biggest confusion for teachers seems to be that the two 7-day blocks
aren't parallel (I don't know why, but guess it's b/c of scheduling conflicts with
other special areas). I've already had teachers comment that they thought I might
be able to come up with a better schedule next year. So, I come to you. If you
have a comparably sized school, with block scheduling, how do you handle the
schedule so that you get adequate lesson-time AND provide open-access time? Pros
and/or cons with wh!
at you'
re doing?
--
Ronda Y. Foust, Librarian
Hardin Valley Elementary School
Knoxville, TN
http://hveslibrary.wikispaces.com/
http://thebookdragon.blogspot.com/
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