ELT Initiative

Massachusetts 2020 has compiled this online Guide for ELT Planning and Redesign to serve as a resource for schools and districts committed to expanding learning time for their students. This guide is a tool to assist superintendents, principals, teachers, union leaders, school partners, parents, and others in thinking through the complexities that will arise through the redesign process, and to provide some productive ways to overcome any challenges that may occur along the way.

This Planning Guide is intended to assist schools as they consider whether an expanded and redesigned school schedule is right for them. In Massachusetts, a key part of this process will be developing an ELT implementation plan and submitting a high-quality proposal to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE). Before getting started, schools may want to review the current ESE ELT Implementation Proposal Requirements.

The guide is divided into six sections:

• Getting Started
• Redesigning Your Educational Program
• Building School and Community Support
• Developing Labor-Management Collaboration 
• Forging Partnerships 
• Moving toward Implementation

 These six areas are highly interdependent and overlapping—they are not chronological phases of work. Therefore, schools planning for ELT should review all six sections before getting started and move back and forth between sections throughout the process.