The Expanded Learning Time Initiative offers an opportunity for teachers and school leaders to redesign the school day or school year to meet the specific needs of their students. The first step in planning for ELT is to assess school and student needs in order to determine a core set of priorities and an academic focus for the redesign.
To assess school and student needs, the planning team should do all or some of the following recommended tasks.
- Use the ELT Expectations & Indicators to help you understand what high-quality ELT schools do. The ELT Planning & Redesign Team should work to understand the ELT Expectation & Indicators and use them as a guide throughout the planning and proposal development process. As the planning process unfolds, developing a school-wide academic focus POST SUMMIT link to: School-wide Academic Focus Examples needs to become the central part of the redesign.
- Assess student data such as MCAS results and other standardized tests and formative assessments to determine students’ most pressing academic needs. (If, for example, students are consistently showing poor performance in math, some part of the school’s ELT plan should focus on addressing these weaknesses. Be sure to consider needs already identified in the School Improvement Plan.)
- Re-examine the current school schedule and conduct time audits to understand how time is currently being used. Teachers can track how time is spent, and identify barriers to learning and teaching created by their current schedule by using the Massachusetts 2020 Time Audit Tool POST SUMMIT link to: TIME AUDIT TOOL.
- Through focus groups or teacher surveys (See sample Teacher Survey), ask teachers what they would like to achieve through ELT:
- What do teachers not have sufficient time to cover in the current schedule?
- How could opportunities for collaborative planning time and professional development be enhanced through ELT?
- Which additional opportunities (enrichment or extracurricular programs) would increase the learning engagement of your students?
- Are there certain skills (e.g., teamwork, problem solving, and technology) that students need to build?
- Consider classes or programs that may have been cut in recent years that you would like to bring back.
- Consider whether or not certain programs or services could be added or expanded in the school day to help address any barriers to learning. (e.g., additional mental health services, advisory programs, etc.)
- Examine initiatives that have been implemented in your school to meet the needs of students (e.g., Responsive Classroom, differentiated instruction, math and ELA coaches, etc.) How could ELT support and improve the impact of these programs?
- Ask parents and students what programs and activities they would like to see more of in the expanded school day. See sample Parent Survey and sample Student Survey.
Once you have fully explored your school’s needs and undertaken the tasks above, your planning team can hold a series of brainstorming sessions to review and prioritize the needs you have identified. While you may start with many ideas, your team should gradually home in on two or three key priorities, including a school-wide academic focus [POST SUMMIT] ]link to: School-wide Academic Focus Examples that will drive the redesign of the school day.
Even with the additional time the ELT initiative offers, schools will not be able to undertake all the changes identified through the needs assessment. Identifying a set of two to three core priorities, including a school-wide academic focus [POST SUMMIT] ]link to: School-wide Academic Focus Examples will make your ELT plan much stronger and more feasible to implement. It may also be helpful at this point to work on a succinct statement of the three core priorities for your redesign. This statement should begin with your school-wide academic focus.
