Seventh period raises challenges for some teachers

MILTON — When the Santa Rosa County School District returns to a seven-period day, a measure the school board passed, middle and high school teachers will gain a planning period. However, the change would mean a 30-minute loss of planning time, and more instruction time, for elementary school teachers.

This is because elementary school students need more supervision compared to older students, according to area educators.

“There are only so many minutes in the 7.5-hour work day. Right now, there is enough time after the students leave for teachers to get 30 minutes set aside for planning.  If we add 30 to 40 minutes to the student day, there may not be 30 minutes left for planning,” Santa Rosa County School District Assistant Superintendent Bill Emerson said.

The school bus schedule ties all the schools together, from elementary to high school, so when middle and high schools let out later, the elementary schools’ schedules have to change as well, according to Emerson.

Emerson could see both sides of the issue.

“It’s a hard thing to try to know what side to be on. More student time means more supervision time and less time to plan but more instruction time to cover more material. With so many expectations, you sometimes miss that instructional time … You lose one thing and gain another.”

Santa Rosa schools could return to a seven-period day as early as the 2017-18 school year.

With announcement of the upcoming change still fresh, Chumuckla Elementary School Principal Danny Carnley said he hasn’t heard anything about it from the CES’s teachers.

“As a principal, you can certainly understand where having 30 more minutes to have to create a schedule gives more time all throughout the schedule,” Carnley said. “You can increase math, increase intervention time, increase wherever you want to put it…

“When you add another half hour, it's going to take a half hour of time teachers did have to use to plan. Ever since it was taken away we've always thought it would be nice to have that 30 minutes back because, the more time you have to instruct students, the better off (they’ll be).”

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Seventh period raises challenges for some teachers