The new schedule for the 2012-13 school year marks the end of a three-year long debate between Poudre School District, the teacher’s unioin, three local high schools, parents and students. 

According to the teacher’s union—known as the Poudre Education Association (PEA)—president Greg Grote, the debate started three years ago when Manny Ortega, former Poudre School District’s (PSD) Assistant Superintendent of secondary schools, proposed the “75 percent efficiency plan.” This new plan, stated Grote, required all high school teachers to be teaching six-out-of-eight classes. Before the plan took effect, teachers at Fossil Ridge High School were teaching five-out-of-seven classes, not taking into account the supplementary advisory class offered one time per week.  The plan was implemented last year.

In 2010, the PEA filed a grievance against the implementation of the 75 percent efficiency plan in PSD’s high schools, proposing that the plan may have “cut down on one-on-one time with students and added stress to both teachers and students alike,” said Grote. According to PSD’s Director of Communications Danielle Clark, “PEA filed the grievance against the district regarding authority to make the decision.”   

Since the plan had passed three years ago, PSD proposed that the grievance had been filed too late.

Because of PSD’s decision, PSD and PEA then proceeded to take part in a mutually agreed upon arbitration session that was presided over by an impartial judge to settle the dispute. “At arbitration, the hearing judges sent the matter back to the district and PEA to be resolved,” Clark said. 

However, the plan was still implemented for the 2011-12 school year. This gave students at Fossil, Collins and Poudre a requirement of eight classes, with options for free periods. It also required all teachers to be teaching during six-out-of-eight periods. Rocky Mountain High School was not affected because their 4×4 block system was already operating on 75 percent efficiency.

Following the arbitration sessions, negotiations between PSD and the PEA began in January. Clark said that the “agreement last Spring” led to the outcome of “eight learning opportunities for students and 1300 +/- 15 minutes instructional time per week for teachers.” Under this new system, Fossil’s weekly advisory class was classified as a “learning opportunity,” which allows Fossil to return to the original eight course schedule—seven classes plus advisory. 

The new schedule for the 2012-13 school year is almost identical to the schedule from the 2010-11 school year, besides a few influences from last year’s schedule. The exclusion of daily 20-minute “Drop Everything And Read” (DEAR) time and the 94-minute class periods are still present from last year’s schedule, besides the switch back to all-period Mondays, Tuesday/Thursday Odds, and Wednesday/Friday Evens from the year before. Instead of a designated DEAR time every day, the first 10 minutes of every English class are now for silent reading, which was also a characteristic of last year’s schedule.

Now, additional 0-hour classes and 9-hour classes are included on the master schedule, which allow students to have extra learning opportunities before or after school.  Previously, 0-hour and 9-hour classes have only been offered for band, choir, Mind Center and Spanish classes.

To learn more about 0-hour and 9-hour after school learning opportunities, talk with Mr. Keller in the Mind Center or you counselor.

For more information about this story, visit Article 11.8 in Employee Agreement.