Five Case Studies on Revising School Schedules

As schools implement comprehensive reform efforts, many are finding the value of juggling the school schedule to provide two important resources for supporting the reform effort: common planning time for teachers, and in elementary schools, literacy blocks (extended time for teaching and practicing reading). This publication presents five case studies of elementary and K-8 schools that have done both.

These case studies are intended to provide school principals, teachers, and school leadership teams with examples of approaches to reorganizing the daily schedule. The case study for each school also describes how the school staff came to agreement on revising the schedule; some case studies also provide recommendations from the school staff on navigating the process of reorganizing schedules. The five schools were selected for study because they had chosen varying approaches to revising their schedules. Four of the schools are in Boston, and the fifth is in Cincinnati. Both of these districts are engaged in comprehensive school reform efforts.

Five Case Studies on Revising School Schedules (PDF)