Background

Students traversing the hallways of West High — with a hall pass, of course — are liable to see a new sight this school year. One of our school’s many subject wings will be packed with teachers meeting and planning classes during the day, with nary a student in sight.

This unusual occurrence reflects a change in scheduling enacted this year. Freshman class principal Mario Pupillo played a role in the decision to bring back a West High policy predating the COVID-19 pandemic: aligning the plan periods of teachers who teach the same subject.

“Part of the professional development that teachers do [is] PLCs, or professional learning communities, where they work in collaborative teams,” Pupillo said. “Our teachers do that on early release days when [students] aren’t here. Pre-COVID, we used to make sure that teachers that were in PLCs together had common plan times. [They were] smaller groups [of] three [or] four people. We got away from it during COVID and we had not gone back to it yet.”

While similar to the old plan-time policy, the new standard in scheduling is more ambitious; instead of just a few, all teachers in each department have aligned plan periods. The result is a significant change in the structure of our school schedule — for better or worse.

PRO

Aligning plan periods brings many benefits to the educators who keep this school running. Teachers are given a broader range of opportunities to utilize their plan time: holding department meetings, brainstorming ideas for their classes, and collaborating with professional peers. As the social studies department chair, history teacher Jeffrey Chazen is attuned to the effects of plan time alteration.

“[This structure]  allows teachers that teach common courses to work together and to facilitate more team teaching,” Chazen said. “Once we start testing, we [will] start digging into the data of how our students are doing and looking at ways that we can improve.”

Increased collaboration between teachers was a primary motivation behind the schedule change. Creating the ability for teachers to coordinate is a priority of Pupillo’s, especially since so many core classes build off of each other.

“We want to be as collaborative of a staff as we can be,” Pupillo said. “[We] want to work together. [Any] teacher that’s teaching [a prerequisite] course wants to make sure they’re doing the right things to get ready for the next course.”

Not only does the new system bring many benefits, Pupillo believes its drawbacks are limited. The schedule was tested to see if students could still get classes, and the impacts weren’t significant enough to impact decision-making.

“The big question I had in mind when I started was, are we going to be able to do this and keep a solid schedule? It really didn’t limit us in any way,” Pupillo said.

Students who had a harder time getting the classes they wanted this year shouldn’t jump to blaming the way the schedule was created. Counselor Jen Wibbenmeyer attests that there may be other contributing factors.

“We base the master schedule on what kids put in in the spring, and when they don’t take that seriously, or when they change their mind, there’s not room in all these other classes to make some of the switches,” Wibbenmeyer said. “The amount of students wanting to switch schedules has stayed the same. Their ability to get them changed has declined.”

CON

Though it helps teachers collaborate, the impact of the new system on students is questionable. After the alignment of subject plan periods in the schedule, some students have found it unusually difficult to get the classes they signed up for. Having entire subjects blocked off during certain hours could have limited students’ scheduling freedom indirectly. For instance, a student who needs an English credit would have more flexibility if English classes were offered at more times of the day. With a period blocked off in every department for collaborative planning, students can only earn certain types of credits at certain times. 

The rush to alter schedules also created a hectic atmosphere during open hours, a time set aside before the school year for students to meet with a counselor and alter their schedule without making an appointment. As the second year of this system, the chaos around schedule switching has markedly increased. The effects on students include raising levels of stress and compromising courses that are important to the individual. 

“I signed up for Fashion, Apparel and [Housing] Design, and I was [assigned] Medical Science instead,” senior Sydney Etchason said. “I don’t need or want Medical Science for the future. Having to change out of [it] stressed me out; I didn’t know what class I was going to have to take to get rid of it.”

With a surplus of students, like Etchason, attempting to change their schedules, waiting times to secure appointments with counselors began to increase.

“[I had] to come into the counseling office [to fix my schedule],” Etchason said. “I waited for an hour before I was able to talk to a counselor and get a few things moved around.”

Wibbenmeyer was partially responsible for handling the flood of people who streamed in during open hours, noting a heightened difference in class availability.

“Students are coming to find that switching their [classes] around [is] getting harder and harder,” Wibbenmeyer said.

Altering teachers’ plan time has backfired for Parkway West in the past, too. With increased scheduling chaos after yet another change, perhaps the powers that be in scheduling should take a cue from the great Paul McCartney and “let it be.”