The Board of Education voted Friday, December 21 to approve a proposed PLC late start model for all four district high schools. The plan eliminates half days for upcoming school years and replaces them with 16 late start days.

This option was chosen out of four options by thePLCHigh SchoolLate Start Committee, which was charged with choosing the best option to increase time for teacher collaboration in professional learning communities.

In the new schedule, classes will begin a 9:46 am every other Monday, and students will not be allowed to enter the building until 9:31 am, allowing teachers 16-90 minutes of PLC time. Bus schedules will be moved back to accommodate for the later start time.

Principal Dr. Gregg Mathison participated on thePLCHigh SchoolLate Start Committee. He said the main advantages of the chosen option over the others are the frequency that teachers could meet and the routine schedule that it created.

“I created the ABC calendar for next year already, and by having the late starts our school weeks are very uniform,” Mathison said. “For students and teachers , routine is good.”

It is estimated that this model will cost $82,871.12 overall, and Mathison said it was one of the most expensive out of the four options considered, but unanimously students, teachers and parents all chose it as the best way to give more PLC time to teachers.

“We are not going to make everybody happy,” Mathison said. “We know that, but we do believe that this is the best system that we can put into place.”

Tom Cook, Spanish teacher, said another advantage is that there is no need for student supervision, and administrators can participate in teacher discussions. He said the more time and frequency that the new model allows also helps student and teacher performance.

“The task that we were given was to give teachers more time to collaborate, because when teachers collaborate, research shows that students perform better,” Cook said.