Dear 2019-2020 Woodbury Families,
The Woodbury teaching staff and I are excited to announce that beginning this fall, Woodbury will adopt a new teaching structure and schedule that enables us to better meet the academic and social-emotional needs of all our students while also achieving the District’s mission of equity, excellence and exploration.
This decision was made very thoughtfully after considering a variety of factors, including how best to provide differentiated instruction for all students in Math and Language & Literature, how to provide deeper and more rigorous learning experiences in Science and Individuals & Societies, how to improve continuity with all special subjects (Art, PE, Music, Design and Language Acquisition) and how to ensure that students have a recess period every day.
A master schedule cohort of Woodbury stakeholders began the process of reviewing our current schedule in early fall 2018 to determine its strengths and challenges. Then, a steering committee comprised of assistant principals, teachers, and IB coordinators worked with Dr. Michael Rettig, a highly regarded school scheduling expert who works regularly with elementary schools to develop schedules that provide ample and consistent time for enrichment, interventions, specials and support services. The committee worked through the winter and into this spring to develop the new schedule, which was presented back to the cohort and approved by both teachers and administrators.
The new structure and schedule includes:
- Communities of four teachers. Most importantly, moving to four-person teaching communities for all students enables students to have the flexibility to be in core and enriched in Math and/or Language Arts. This change also enables teachers to be content specialists in their specific areas (Math, Language & Literature, Science and Individuals & Societies), which will provide a more enriching learning experience for your student. The four teachers in each community will be adjacent to one another to minimize student movement.
- A five-day rotation schedule of special subject classes. Next year, Woodbury will move to a five-day rotation that is NOT based on the days of the week. Instead, days are 1 through 5, which allows for continuity of special subject classes. This new five-day rotation includes two periods each of Music, Language Acquisition and PE, and one period each of Art and Design year-round. The addition of Design as a year-round class gives students more frequent STEAM experiences and aligns with the District’s i3 Initiative, which aims to provide students with more opportunities to develop their technology and science/engineering skills. The schedule will also include an Advisory period two times per five-day rotation. One Advisory period will be academic enrichment or interventions and the second will be devoted to social-emotional lessons. Previously, holidays, conference days and snow days negatively impacted the number of times students received instruction in specials. Under the new schedule, if the District cancels school because of snow on a “Day 2”, then when students return to school, they will simply resume the ‘Day 2” schedule.
- Five days of recess. By building in two music classes into the five-day rotation, the long-standing lunchtime band/orchestra class is eliminated and students will have recess—which, for children this age, is essential for social-emotional development—every day.
This schedule does not impact school hours: the day will still begin at 8:25 a.m. and end at 2:53 p.m. Also, our after-school clubs and activities schedule remains unchanged.
Most importantly, all Woodbury teachers are committed to continuing to build meaningful learning relationships with each of their students and look forward to supporting them with deeper subject-level learning experiences and opportunities. To that end, we will also loop our assistant principals Doug Myles and Patricia Rashid with their current grades—a decision that enables them to build better relationships and continuity with students over two years. Next year, Mr. Myles will be the sixth-grade assistant principal and Ms. Rashid will be the fifth-grade assistant principal.
We understand that change brings questions. I welcome your calls and emails, or you may attend our informal Q&A session with teachers, our assistant principals and me from 7-8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 28 in the Woodbury Community Band Room.
Enjoy the rest of this school year and I look forward to seeing your students in the Woodbury halls next fall!
Sincerely,
H. Danny Young, Principal
Woodbury Elementary School