I’ve had this thing on my mind that someone—alas I can’t remember who—said to me to the effect of “a good administrator will build the master schedule around specialists.” Maybe it’s because it’s registration season and I’m trying to get my assignment down from four schools to a mere three.
I teach one section of junior high orchestra (grades 7, 8, and 9 combined; 42 students), one section of high school orchestra (grades 10, 11, and 12 combined; 28 students); a section of AP music theory (26 students); and fifth- and sixth-grade orchestra at two different elementary schools. One elementary is Tuesday/Thursday and one is Wednesday/Friday; each has about 35 students between the two grades.
A band colleague of mine said something the other day to the effect of “your schedule, Jack’s and Bob’s drive the scheduling for the whole district” (names changed to protect the innocent; two other orchestra teachers who are at HS, Jr. high, and elem). It seems a bit hyperbolic, but he’s probably not too far off.
In our district (as I would imagine is the case in many other places) we have three different start times: junior highs start really early, high schools start early-ish, and elementary starts later (roughly 7:30, 8:30, and 9:30 respectively). We’re contracted for 7.5 hours and are supposed to arrive 30 minutes before the students and stay 30 minutes after. Because I (and my two other colleagues) teach at all three levels, we are severely constrained by when we can teach. I’m lucky in that my high school is right across the parking lot from my junior high, so I can walk there.
Most of my “regular” colleagues teach five periods and have one prep period plus a “duty-free” half-hour lunch. I have some time in the morning and some time in the afternoon, and my Monday afternoons are actually pretty open. I spend a fair amount of time in my car each day.
My colleagues teach mostly the same thing all day long: maybe four sections of 7th grade science and one of 8th grade science or something like that, so two “preps.” They have a curriculum that they work from with lots of things pre-made for them—they do have a lot of grading to do: I’m not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. I have five preps: jr. high, high school, AP theory, fifth grade, and sixth grade.
On the other hand, I don’t really have a curriculum per se: I pick music, we learn it, practice it, and play it. I have to differentiate instruction. We have a very public-facing class: science classes aren’t really out their “science-ing” for the general public a few times a school year. We have to plan concerts, set them up, tear them down, make programs… we have contests and festivals (times two because I’m at the junior high and the high school). I have to recruit my sixth-graders to stay with me in junior high; I have to recruit my junior high students and the students from the other junior high in my region to join the high school orchestra, and I have to beg them to beg their counselors to sign them up for AP music theory because unless 30 people don’t sign up for that class, then it’s back to teaching at five schools for me (as I did my first two years).
I am fortunate in that I don’t have a lot of discipline problems: students are in orchestra because they want to be in orchestra (for the most part).
We’re evaluated using the Danielson framework. It does not neatly encapsulate what we do as specialists. Our substitute system is very poorly equipped to handle what needs to take place when I need a day off.
I’m not posting this to brag, or to complain. Back to the opening paragraph: I wonder what it would look like if the unique needs of specialists were centered in some of the decision-making that goes on at the higher levels. For instance, due to a shortage of bus drivers, our district redid the bell schedules for this year to streamline transportation. A few of the options they presented, though, would have made it virtually impossible for some of my colleagues and I to stay within our contracted hours. Maybe it is and I’m just too out of the loop to really know what goes on, but these ideas have been bouncing around in my head for the last week or so and I felt the need to get them out.