Help a Principal Get Creative with Scheduling

For the last few years, my school has experimented with a rotating seven-period schedule. (If today is periods 1-2-3-4-5, then tomorrow is periods 6-7-1-2-3 and so on . . . you get the point).

Teachers, students, and parents love the schedule. The idea of classes meeting at different times of the day has been embraced as the biggest plus—gone is the dreaded last period of the day (every day) class that we have all experienced.

For me, it's a bit of a nightmare because it makes hiring part-time teachers nearly impossible, and if I want to send 8th graders to the local high school in the morning to take a course too advanced to be taught in my building (i.e., I have four students ready for Algebra 2), it can be hard to work it into this rotating schedule.

Still, the benefits have outweighed the costs thus far, so we're sticking with it and dealing with the problems. Are any of you doing anything creative or different with your master schedule? I'd love to hear some fresh ideas. Remember that what is old hat for you may be completely foreign to me, so please just throw out some ideas that you know have worked for kids.

(Submitted by 2009 Outstanding Young Educator Marc Cohen, principal of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Germantown, Md.)