Students Could Face Longer Class Time

Students in first and second grade may soon lose early bird and late bird schedules in favor of a full day education, pending a decision by the Burlingame Elementary School District Board of Trustees at its Tuesday meeting.

Currently, first and second grade instructional time is staggered into early bird and late bird groups.The board first discussed the issue of eliminating early bird/late bird in late November with the intent of increasing core instructional time without persistent interruptions throughout the day by specialist.

“We want to provide a good chunk of [time] for teachers to teach kids and have it uninterrupted,” said Assistant Superintendent Jud Kempson at the Nov. 22 meeting. “The classroom teacher is the key person in the students’ life…there should be limited pull out.”

He noted that while specialists provide invaluable support and programming, such as physical education and enrichment, the early bird/late bird model forces principals to schedule core instructional time around specialists, instead of the other way around. Most specialists instructs early bird and late bird students at the same time, so that time must be taken from the roughly three hours in the middle of the day when all students are present.

However, eliminating early bird/late bird makes some teachers hesitant. They were unsure how addressing such varying degrees of skill and reading levels—done in small groups with the smaller, staggered classes—would work in full group instruction.

Superintendent Maggie MacIsaac said longer periods of instruction with more students will allow teachers to assess students across the grade level and still provide individualized support as needed by grouping students of similar needs. Students of differing levels can work at different paces in small groups, while still having the necessary support given the longer periods of instructional time.

“It’s a paradigm shift,” she said. “It’s no longer waiting for students to fail…right away when a student doesn’t get something, you have a structure where you can re-teach it.”

The full day program would amount to adding 22 instructional days for first and second grade students.

The issue of a full day program came to the forefront of discussion after a , following the implementation of a beginning in the 2012-2013 school year.

The transitional kindergarten program is mandated by State Senate Bill 1381, which requires children turn five-years-old previous to Nov. 1 for the 2012-2013 school year, Oct. 1 for the 2013-2014 school year and eventually Sept. 1 for the 2014-2015 school year.

The Burlingame Elementary School District Board of Trustees meets at 7 p.m. in the district Administration Building at 1825 Trousdale Dr.