Leadership Project: Modification of School Schedule

Narrative For Leadership Project

Rational and Purpose

Santa Monica Daily Press January 21st, 2014

What is the reason we provide a free, public education to our young people in this country? Is it to create obedient followers who do what they are told and adhere to the commands of their superiors? We seem to want to compare ourselves through standardized test results to other countries (though the students ours are compared to represent the elite of the homogeneous societies they are being tested against, and/or come from countries with profoundly different attitudes towards education and teaching), while also excoriating our school system for not preparing our charges for the 21^st century. The critics and so-called ‘reformers,’ are quick to find, blame and attack perceived scapegoats (usually the historic adversaries of their hidden and not-so-hidden financial backers), while paying little to no attention as to how and why our school system is the way it is; we close and shudder vocational education programs because all students should be college bound, we cut arts and music instruction but complain about our lack of innovation and creativity and we cut Physical Education instruction and lament the rise of obesity.

As a society we seem to enjoy believing in and endlessly repeating the platitudes that our advertising industry has been able to cobble together from the ideas of more meaningful, original thinkers. It’s not a stretch to argue that to many, it is considered the height of achievement, genius even, to use images of past revolutionary thinkers in order to sell product. Unfortunately, it also reinforces cynicism and fear when we discover that hallowed and trusted institutions don’t live up to our flawed memories of the ‘good old days,’ that never existed in the first place. When it comes to marginalized groups not ‘achieving’ in schools or schools themselves not being ‘accountable’ for the discrepancies in educational outcomes, the comparisons to Chinese students or the Finnish school system are evoked.  Apparently, the ‘experts’ believe educational professionals just need to get off their butts and “just do it,” whatever the hell that means.

At Olympic Continuation High School in Santa Monica, we spend the beginning of each year agonizing about how to remedy the more disruptive challenges of the previous year by breaking down and analyzing the root causes of those problems, and always (always!) seem to wind up focused back on the same phenomena that plagued our students the year previous. Given that most of our charges arrive at Olympic having been SARB’ed (Student Attendance Review Board), at least once (and many twice) and the fact that many have also earned the distant (yet significant) supervision of the probation system, it is not inaccurate to describe our students as the best truants in the school district.

Leadership Role

• To conduct an action-research project that modifies the traditional school day by pushing back the start of school day by 45 minutes in order to increase student attendance.
• To monitor attendance trends across grade level by comparing pre-schedule change attendance patterns to patterns after schedule modification.
• To create, distribute and analyze student surveys as to their attitudes and feelings about the modified schedule and use data to inform aspects of the modification.

Learning/PDSA Cycle

The learning cycle was focused on implementing changes for the purposes of improvement using a PDSA cycle. The goal was to both increase instructional learning time and, in turn, increase academic credit completion at a small, comprehensive Continuation high school. Students at the school are defined as at-risk, low on credits (below grade level), having special needs and/or having a variety of defined (and undefined) behavioral issues. The percentage of black and Latino students is significantly higher and the percentage of white students significantly lower than at other schools in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District.

The action taken was to modify the instructional day so that students began their first class of the day at 9:15 and ended at 3:00. Previous practice was to begin the 1^st period at 8:30 and dismiss students at 2:00. Previously, Olympic teachers shared a common prep period from 2:00-2:45, thus the common prep was moved, to the 8:30-9:15 slot (what was 1^st period). The Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District and the Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association have a contract which states that Teachers shall arrive on campus 30 minutes before the beginning of instructional time (or first period) and that they may leave campus when, in their judgment, their instructional duties are finished (which is to be determined by the teacher). Thus the contractual language is not violated because teachers are on campus during the exact same time frame as the traditional schedule. The staff originally made the decision to regard the schedule modification as temporary, beginning January 13^th 2014 and ending on February10th 2014, but due to the evidence of improved attendance from that first month decided to retain the modified schedule until the end of the school year.

Since the plan was to push back the instructional day to a later start time, the learning cycle was attempting to address what Wolfson & Carskadon (1998) refered to as sleep phase shift, which refers to how adolescents tend to stay up later at night and sleep later in the morning than their preadolescent selves. Thus the rationale for the learning cycle arises from the desire to address sleep phase shift while still supplying the exact same level of instructional time and teacher mentoring. The predicted outcomes were an increase in attendance amongst all students but with special attention given to the attendance of seniors who, on average, are absent 10% more of the time than juniors and sophomores. Good attendance in and of itself is not the ultimate goal, of course, but a positive first step towards helping Olympic students attain greater academic success through access to greater instructional time, which translates into greater credit completion and a return to grade level. For the purposes of the cycle, a predicted outcome of an increase in attendance amongst all students of 3-5% and of seniors specifically form 5-10%, corresponding credit completion should also increase between 5-10%. Comparisons were originally going to be made, for the purposes of analysis, between attendance data from December 2013 to January 2014. Attendance data is now being used for comparison from every succeeding month.

Implementation measures began in August 2013 at the first faculty meeting of the year. Attendance policy is always discussed and this school year was no different. Olympic High is, after all, the temporary home of the best truants in the district, but catching them up to grade level (credits) requires them to be in school and in class as much as possible. New hypothetically possible improvement models are discussed and often adopted or modified and previous years strategies evaluated. This year, however, the author brought up the idea for a modified, later start school day and the discussion and attitudes seemed favorable enough to warrant this attempt at a Leadership project.

Timeline of the learning cycle began with a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, November 20 between Dr. Janie Gates, Principal of Olympic Continuation High School, and Professor Merle Price, UCLA Fieldwork supervisor. The results of the meeting were positive and the agreement was signed to go ahead and implement the plan, and the schedule proceeded as follows. On December 11, the first meeting of the elected representatives of the Olympic High School Site Council took place. At the meeting, the parent-elects and school staff were asked to complete brief surveys describing their knowledge of adolescent sleep habits and their own struggles/non struggles with sleep when they themselves were adolescents. The reflections of those on Site Council were used in the informational handout mailed home to parents and guardians. A brief PowerPoint presentation was provided to highlight the goals of the project as well as the rationale behind it and it’s relationship to the idea of social justice. Key findings from the Literature Review were shared in the presentation and copies of the relevant articles were available to all who requested. Attendance and credit completion data from previous years were shown in order to provide baseline information. The Site Council was asked to share their beliefs, feelings or hesitations about the project and any possible improvements (or roadblocks) they thought were helpful or necessary. Site Council members were asked to study the previous years relational data and discuss implications for the implementation of the fieldwork plan. Parent members and faculty were asked to ‘sign-off’ on the fieldwork plan by actually signing their names on correspondence sent home before, during and after the fieldwork.

An informational handout describing the Fieldwork plan was mailed to each parent and legal guardian on December 13^th. The handout was a concise description of the plan describing the rationale for the plan, timeline to carry it out, how the instructional day would be modified while still providing the same amount of instruction and the expected outcomes. An emphasis was initially placed on a short, one-month timeframe in order to not seem too unconventional. There was consideration that stakeholders not be made to feel as though they were ‘guinea pigs’ in some sort of experiment! Follow-up phone calls were made to every parent from December 17^th to the 19^th to make sure that all stakeholders were knowledgeable of the plan.

On Friday, January 10^th all parents and guardians were called again to remind them of the modification to the schedule that began the following Monday, January 13^th and (was scheduled) to end four weeks later on Monday, February 10^th.

On January 10^th the fieldwork began. First period of the day began at 9:15 and last period of the day ended at 2:45. Teachers now have a common Prep period from 8:30 to 9:15. Fridays are an early release day and the school day was moved from 8:30-11:57 to 9:15-12:42.

Ethical considerations have to do mainly with those students for whom the original/traditional schedule supports the schedules of their families. For example, a small number (<10) are dropped off at school earlier than the arrivals of most teachers because the parents’ schedules necessitate dropping them off early. For these students, the author provided what turned out to be the equivalent of an AM class, that began at 8:30 which had the unintended, but favorable consequence of providing an extra period of instruction for those who chose or needed it. If their parents (or any other parent) took exception to the modified schedule, the traditional schedule will still be provided, although with some small changes. And students that have jobs after school may be provided with a slightly earlier dismissal time if validated by employer.

Parent Letter

Literature Review

As mentioned before, Olympic Continuation High School is an alternative secondary school with a staff dedicated to increasing the instructional time of its’ at-risk student population. Concern about attendance and instructional time have been at the forefront of most of our conversations as a staff. Year after year we modify old practices to manipulate the outcome we seek for our students. Due to the nature of our mission, credit recovery for seniors is paramount given the impending deadline of their scheduled graduation or their 18^th birthday (or both). Earlier this year, the author raised the issue of a later start time at Olympic to increase attendance and instructional time. Overall, attendance at Olympic shows a clear delineation between sophomores and juniors (whose average daily attendance is 88.79% (89.54%-Sophomores, 88.04%-Juniors), and seniors who in spite of their more precarious circumstances (potentially dropping out) have an average daily attendance rate of 76.59%. Thus, at a time when seniors should be in class as much as possible they are, in fact, receiving significantly less instructional time.

Examining the research on sleep habits of adolescence elucidates the anecdotal evidence that educators at Olympic (and other secondary institutions) experience on a day-to-day basis. The phenomena that Wolfson & Carskadon (1998) refer to as sleep phase shift, which refers to how adolescents tend to stay up later at night and sleep later in the morning than their preadolescent selves. This shift creates what Carskadon (as cited by Hines, 2004) calls delayed sleep phase onset, in which the tendency to stay up later and rise later is exacerbated by the fact that adolescents appear to require as much sleep as preadolescents. Thus, if an adolescent child is tending to stay up later they will need to wake up later as dictated by slightly altered (from preadolescents and adults) circadian rhythms. Naturally occurring circadian rhythms, for the purpose of this review, refers to the urge to sleep brought on because of the release of Melatonin which slows as another hormone, Cortisol, increases in the body, signaling wakefulness (Dawson, as cited by Stanley, B.L. 2011). However, in adolescents, evidence exists that hormonal and social changes contribute to greater need for regular nightly sleep at the same time adolescents are not getting the amount of sleep needed (Stanley, B.L. 2011).

This creates obvious challenges for adolescents, especially those at-risk. The connection between adequate sleep and emotional regulation is especially prescient here; at-risk youth are by definition more likely to experience behavioral problems and family chaos that can lead to later bedtimes and sleep schedules that are ever more incompatible to school schedules (Dahl, R.E. 1999). Even more troubling, a depressed adolescent with sleep problems may be showing sleep disturbances that stem from depression or mood problems that stem from sleep disruption. Sleep loss can also contribute to a negative spiral or vicious cycle of deterioration (Dahl, R.E. 1999). Students at Olympic have, by definition, more stress and chaos in their lives overall than their peers, and the effect is academically negative (evidenced by their falling behind their age level peers). If so called ‘normal’ adolescents, that is those succeeding at grade level in the comprehensive high school, are prone to these irregular circadian rhythms, how much more challenging would at-risk adolescents find these new rhythms? Adolescent sleep systems appear to become more vulnerable to stress at a time when social turmoil and difficulties are increasing (Dahl, R.E. 1999).

At risk students are also far more likely to exacerbate their difficulty falling asleep and waking up by self-medicating. Sleep deprivation may result from disturbances ion the sleep/wake cycle; this, in turn, may lead to emotional disturbance and fall-off in school performance. The use of hypnotics and stimulants such as amphetamines and caffeine can make matters worse (Bartlet, L.B. 2006).

Specific to possible remedies or therapies that address these now acknowledged irregular adolescent circadian rhythms, Minnesota high schools experimenting with later start times reported that later start times lead to students to self-report that they were getting “significantly more sleep,” (Hanover Research Council, 2010). However, the greatest statistical difference in improved attendance was exemplified by students who were not continuously enrolled for 2 consecutive years in the same high school (Hanover Research Council, 2010). Since all students at Olympic Continuation High School have switched schools recently, it stands to reason that they may benefit the most form a later start to their academic day.

All of the Literature concluded with acknowledgement of the fledgling nature of the study of adolescent sleep habits and the need for further, published peer-reviewed research. Some of the research itself was contradictory and lends credence to the need for more rigor in the investigation of the issue. Two articles mentioned that adolescents slept longer periods during non-school days to make up for their sleep deficits. But while one study suggested that students who compensated for shortened weekday sleep times by sleeping longer on weekends were less likely to have school performance deficits (Ming, Koransky, Kang, Buchman, Sarris & Wagner, 2011) another study noted that increased weekend sleep duration was significantly associated with more omission errors on sustained and divided attention tasks (Kim, Lee, Y.J., Cho, S-J., Cho, I-H. & Lim, (2011).

Results

Of the 60 classes taught by full time teachers at Olympic High School during the two months following the modification of the schedule 43 showed improved attendance, 15 showed a decline in attendance and 2 classes showed no change in attendance. The results are provided in the graph provided.

Challenges

My biggest challenge was the logistics of changing the schedule. For while my idea has received interest and support from the students, the rest of the staff (given their ongoing frustrations with attendance), the Superintendant and most of the elected school board, I was concerned that a minority of students would be unable to adjust their schedules to the new, later start, later end school day. These students were (and still are) dropped off well before their peers as a result of parents work schedules and often have an hour to kill before the first bell. They are, as one might assume, students whose attendance is better than most and so I felt as though my project should be modified to accommodate their needs while shifting the rest of the student body to the modified temporary (now permanent) schedule.  A remedy was discovered when one colleague, who describes herself as a ‘morning person,’ and I discussed the possibility of having a separate, elective-credit earning study hall/tutorial from 8:00 to 9:00 o’clock. By the second week of the schedule modification we had created what amounts to an AM class. This amounts to an extra period that any student can choose to enroll in and reflects an option available at the comprehensive high school. While the number of students who are dropped off early is relatively small, there is a small cadre which does take advantage of the quiet morning session to redouble their academic efforts toward credit recovery. It helped that the AM teacher has credentials in multiple subjects ensuring adherence to NCLB guidelines.

There is some evidence in the Literature (not cited in my review), to suggest that customizing a students’ schedule to their individual learning needs and wants has a positive academic impact so creating a hybrid schedule may meet the needs of more students.

Students were, for the most part, wholeheartedly enthusiastic about the schedule change. It should be noted that by law, Continuation High Schools must provide only 15 hours of instruction per week to each student. It seems counter-intuitive that students already behind in academic credit and are clearly not working at grade level should be provided with less instructional time, but that is the reality. Olympic High School and the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District have provided a more socially just, realistic path for these students by offering more hours of weekly instruction.

Student Survey

In a survey completed by the students one month after the schedule modification began, there was a mix of relevant data;

• 50% responded that the new schedule “was helpful to their overall experience,” while 33% said it was not (the remaining 17% stated “not sure”).
• 57% responded that the new schedule “helped them get to school on time,” while 26% said it did not (16% stated “not sure”).
• 40% responded that the new schedule “helped them feel less stressed out/calmer,” while 28% said it did not (33% stated “not sure”).

However, other data suggests the need for further investigation:

• 38% of the students did not think that the new schedule helped them “focus more in class and/or complete more assignments,” while 33% felt it did (30% were not sure).
• 45% thought we should retain the new schedule while 42% wanted to change back to the previous, traditional schedule (14% were not sure) NOTE: these results are so statistically close that more investigation is needed.

Santa Monica Daily Press March 17th, 2014

Modifications and Possible Improvements

Going into the 2014-2015 school year, further efforts should be made to further customize the schedule to students needs. Each student should be given the opportunity to choose the schedule that works best for their success, thus exploring the possibility of more non-traditional schedules. For example, schedule A may begin at 7:45 and end at 1:15, schedule B from 8:30 to 2:00 and schedule C from 9:15 to 2:45. Though logistically difficult, the possibility of letting students experiment with their schedule is also compelling; a student tries schedule C, but decides it’s too difficult to stay awake and productive after 2:30, moving to a different schedule may yield a better outcome.

Another area of interest will be the effect of scheduling on credit completion. Originally, this fieldwork plan was designed to use credit completion as a way to determine the effects of modifying schedules to adolescent sleep patterns, but this presents numerous challenges to our unique school setting. For example, walking into any given classroom at any given time of day you will find students of different grade levels working on different classes. Some may be completing their last assignment in Biology B while their neighbor is beginning her first Laboratory assignment in Earth Science A. Some students arrive from the comprehensive high schools with most of the credits required to graduate and others arrive first day of what is supposed to be their last year in high school without earning a single credit. These factors are unique to Continuation high schools and make credit analysis and evaluation more challenging.

California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders

• 1.1A Student Centered Vision: my fieldwork plan shaped a collective vision that used multiple measures of data and focused on equitable access, opportunities and outcomes for all students.
• A2 Cultivate multiple learning opportunities that build on student assets and address student needs
• A3 Address achievement and opportunity disparities between student groups, with attention to those with special needs: cultural, racial, and linguistic differences; and disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds.
• 1.1 Develop a Shared Vision: my fieldwork project was predicated on total buy-in from the staff at my school and on the majority/positive feedback from the students.
• 1.2 Plan and Implement Activities around the Vision: in individual and whole staff meetings as well as with the Site Council held before during and after the implementation of the modified schedule, constant feedback was received and in certain cases led to modification of the original plan. Adding the AM class to address the needs of students dropped off to school early is an example.

3B Plans and Procedures-B1: Develop schedules and assign placements that are student-centered and maximize instructional time and staff collaboration