Middle School Issues Committee

I attended the Middle School Issues Committee yesterday afternoon.  There was a review of how collaboration time is being used.  It was impressive to me what the various schools are doing and how well it is working.  One idea that came up was to move the collaboration time from Friday morning to Wednesday afternoon as it was during the pilot.  I would be interested to hear what all middle school educators think about this topic.

Middle School Issues Committee Meeting

I attended the Middle School Issues Committee Meeting last week.  Since my only experience with middle school is when I attended, I was interested in learning more.  It seems the collaboration time of Fridays is very valuable and the time is used effectively.  Schools were concerned about the number of Friday holidays where collaboration time is missed.  Collaboration time cannot be moved to another day of the week, because then the schools would not meet the 990 instructional hours. 

There have been problems this year with classified position cuts from full to half-time, particularly with hall monitors and registrars.  There has been more turnover, and the qualifications and commitment of the candidates is lower.  These positions need to be consistent among the middle schools for equity and payroll purposes.