The DMGroup Spotlight
With strategic scheduling, schools can reinforce their priorities, promote teaching and learning best practices, inspire student engagement, and maximize educational opportunities for all students cost-effectively.
Despite the critical impact schedules can have on student learning, many elementary schools still rely on long-standing, time-consuming scheduling practices. This often makes scheduling more complex and onerous and results in less efficient and less effective schedules for students.
Jumpstart your scheduling process and achieve better results by leveraging the best practices and tools available. In this Spotlight Newsletter, we share strategic school scheduling practices that maximize instructional time, improve equity, and make the most of every school day for students and staff.
BLOG SERIES: How to Build an Elementary School Schedule
Do you want to create student-centered schedules that align with your goals and meet the needs of all students?
This 12-part blog series shares expert step-by-step guidance and proven scheduling strategies to help you create better elementary school schedules this year.
SCHEDULING STRATEGIES: Making the Most of Student Time Amid Staff Shortages
Although schools have resumed in-person teaching and some sense of normalcy, the global crisis continues to impact staff shortages.
In 2022:
Further, more than half of these schools reported using staff outside their intended roles to fill staffing vacancies (source: Institute of Education Sciences).
In 2021, we published an article about staffing shortages that is still relevant today. Learn how you can utilize the talent of your current staff to meet the needs of all students.
CASE STUDY: Indian Prairie School District 204 (IL) Increases Support for Struggling Students through Strategic Scheduling
With more than 28,000 students, Indian Prairie School District (IPSD) boasts high graduation rates and ELA, Math, and SAT scores above state averages. Yet, despite considerable investments in strengthening intervention efforts, struggling students still faced achievement gaps.
One of the most significant barriers to the effective delivery of intervention services was scheduling. With budget cuts and staffing reductions, the district could not find ways to incorporate intervention blocks into school schedules and
saw no option but to provide interventions and student services during core instruction time.
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With the assistance of DMGroup, IPSD developed a plan for district-wide sharing of staff aligned with best practices and established common student services guidelines across schools.
Using DMSchedules, DMGroup's scheduling software, IPSD elementary schools were able to create schedules with Intervention and Enrichment support that met district guidelines and enabled consistent and effective student services delivery across all elementary schools.
SELF-ASSESSMENT: Is Your Schedule Aligned with Scheduling Best Practices?
Take our Elementary School Scheduling Diagnostic to see if your scheduling practices maximize instructional time, support equity for all students, and make the most of every day for students, teachers, and staff.
Free Webinars: Best Practices in Elementary School and Special Education Scheduling
Interested in learning more about strategic scheduling in elementary schools and special education? Don't miss our upcoming webinars:
We're adding new webinars each month to accommodate your busy schedules.
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