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Many contract negotiations spell out the amount of planning
and collaboration time teachers will get. This is increasingly the case as many
states
move forward with new college- and career-readiness standards for
students, a big shift which requires lots of planning. Teacher Trendline covered this topic in
our very first post
three years ago, so it seems fitting to once again look at the trends in how
much time teachers get to plan and collaborate.
Planning time
The amount of teachers’ daily planning time looks roughly the same now as it
did three years ago. While not all districts quantify planning time in the same
way, the most common allotment across districts in the database is an average
of 45 minutes per day, for both elementary and secondary school teachers.
In Montgomery County (MD),elementary teachers get the most planning time with an average of 84 minutes per day. Close behind is Anne Arundel County (MD) with 82 minutes. Chicago gives secondary teachers the most time with 100 minutes per day, followed by Fresno which gives secondary teachers 96 minutes per day.
Of course, not all districts have planning policies that are
easy to break down into minutes per day. Many districts use other
specifications, like the 37 districts that give secondary teachers one “period”
or “block” per day for preparation. Two districts with unique
policies are Guilford County (NC), the only
district in the database that explicitly leaves planning time up to individual
schools, and St. Paul, which gives secondary teachers five minutes of planning time for
every 25 minutes of instructional time.
Collaboration time
In addition to individual planning time, teachers also need
time to collaborate and plan with their colleagues. Almost half of the
districts in the database (47 percent) do not address the issue of
collaboration time in their contracts or board policies. Of those that do, 23
percent state that it is an allowable or encouraged use of some portion of
regular planning time, 21 percent designate a specific amount of time for
collaboration and nine percent mention collaboration but do not specify an
amount of time.
Christina (DE) designates the most
amount of time for collaboration, giving elementary teachers a maximum of 90
minutes per week and secondary teachers a minimum of 90 minutes per week. Of
districts that specifically mention using preparation time for collaborative
planning, the District of Columbia allows all
teachers to use up to 150 minutes of their morning planning time per week for collaboration
and Chicago allows up to 150 minutes
of principal-directed planning periods[1]
to be used for collaboration.
[1]
In Chicago, teachers have seven 50 minute planning periods per week for
planning that they self-direct and three 50 minute periods per week that the
principal directs and can choose to dedicate to collaboration, department
meetings, professional development, etc.
