GAEL UnscriptED S2:E19 | Your Master Schedule Is The Strongest Literacy Lever You Control

Your literacy plan can be strong and still feel impossibly hard if the system around it is misaligned. We sit down with Georgia Department of Education leaders Dr. April Aldridge and Amy Denty, joined by curriculum and instruction director Felicia Purdy, to show how small shifts in alignment create real relief for leaders and real gains for students. 

We start with the “Alignment Advantage” and why clarity, coherence, and consistency matter when you’re trying to lead ELA and literacy improvement during a busy testing season. Then Felicia gets practical about the master schedule as the most powerful instructional leadership tool we control. We dig into protecting Tier 1 instruction, building intervention intentionally, and why course coding accuracy is not just compliance but a direct line to accurate services, clean data, and appropriate funding through FTE categories and program weights. If you’ve ever wondered how delivery models should be reported or why “what we code” must match “what we do,” this is your roadmap.

From there, we walk through examples across grade bands: elementary literacy blocks and micro-scheduling for equitable minutes, WIN time and staggered intervention structures, middle school schedules that reduce fragmentation and expand daily literacy time, and high school pathways that use double blocks and flex periods for intervention, enrichment, and credit recovery. We close with a simple data framework leaders can use tomorrow: looking at schoolwide trends, classroom variation, and individual student needs as one connected system.

If this helped you think differently about time, data, and intervention systems, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, share this with a fellow leader, and leave a quick review telling us which “gear” needs the most attention in your building.

Please note: this is Session #2 of the 2026 GAEL Spring Webinar Series. 

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Gale Unscripted, where leadership meets learning and real conversations drive real impact. I'm Ben Wiggins, Executive Director of Gale. Join us as we go beyond the headlines with Georgia's top education leaders. Let's elevate the conversation.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

We are glad that you are here to join us for part two of our spring webinar series, partnering with the Georgia Department of Education, focusing on literacy now. And the title of this series is Leading ELA in Literacy Now, The Alignment Advantage. Today our speakers will be talking about small shifts, strategic alignment, and big impact. I know these people you already know, they're familiar faces to you because they're always out there in front of you, speaking in many locations, coming to your schools. But we have our deputy superintendent of teaching and learning, Dr. April Aldridge, that will be sharing this morning, as well as Amy Dente, who is our director of literacy at the DOE. And they're going to share some great information. If you've ever listened to any of their presentations before, you know that they speak fast because they've got a lot of content to share with you. So get your ears ready to go and your writing hand ready to take notes. But do remember that we will be recording this or we are recording this and it will be made available to you through the Gale Flyer and the DOE will also have it on their website for you too if you ever need to refer back to it. But there will be lots of links included so that you can go back and take a closer look at what they're sharing with you. As we go through today, I know Amy and April would appreciate it. If you have any questions, to put those in the chat box so that we can clear up any clear up any misconceptions or confusions that may be out there. But we welcome you today, and I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Amy and April.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Well, good morning, everybody. We are certainly glad that you have joined us. And again, to echo what um Cindy just said, we know that many of you are right in the middle of the testing season. So we know that there are lots of competing priorities on your plate. But we're glad that you have chosen to spend the next 60 minutes or so with us. So we're gonna jump right in and um kind of revisit and restart where we were last month. But just a reminder that we're really focusing on standards, curriculum, time, and support. And you'll know that last month, if you were with us or watched the recording, we really focused on the standards and the curriculum parts. But more importantly, we began to really think about and honor the fact that, you know, guys, we're all working really hard. But when these items aren't working together, even the strong work that you are completing feels harder than it should. And, you know, in most of our schools, it's really never a question of about are we working hard enough? It's really more about that it's not a lack of effort, but it's really often what slows us down is that we have misalignment. So our goal for this three-part series is to really help you to focus in on making sure that misalignment is not showing you slowing you down. We certainly want you to experience the maximum impact for the input that you are putting into this work. So last month we talked about aligning what's talking, and this month, we're in this three-part series, we're gonna move on to our second area of focus, which is aligning time and support.

The Alignment Advantage Framework

SPEAKER_01 4:02

So we're gonna really continue to focus on what we're calling our alignment of advantage. And certainly in life, we all wanna take advantage of those areas that um give us the maximum support. So let's look at this from pace practice and the three um the drivers of influence that we're gonna um focus on again, which is clarity, coherence, and consistency. And you know, when we talk about these instructional moves, when we talk about these three drivers being aligned, then um even um, you know, this is where we get that maximum impact. So when you're looking at clarity, which is knowing the work, coherence is checking the alignment, and consistency is leading the conversation. And what I want you to stop and think about today before you get overwhelmed, because in this work sometimes we can get overwhelmed. Um, and I want you to start thinking about how when you intentionally focus on clarity, coherence, and consistency, how these can make those gears shift and move in alignment, right? And they move smoothly. And then sometimes when one of those things gets out of alignment, right, that's when those gears will start to grind, and that's when that work feels harder. And um when maybe you're putting a lot of effort in and not seeing the results that you want. Again, last time we talked about how to make sure that you aren't having misalignment with your curriculum and with the standards. And today we have um brought on an we'll call her the resident expert. Um, and we're gonna talk about um a second driver. Um, well, this is really a first driver in this session, but we're really gonna focus on how we're maximizing and using our time. So Felicia Purdy is joining us. She is the director of curriculum and instruction, and she's gonna really give us everything we need to know about how to make sure that our time is in alignment. And we we've had this by popular demand. We're really gonna focus and talk about on master scheduling. So, Felicia, thanks for joining us today, and we're gonna turn it over to you and let you help us make sure that we are not misaligned when it comes to scheduling and in protecting our instructional time.

Why Master Scheduling Drives Results

SPEAKER_06 6:19

Okay, well, thank you, April, and good morning, everyone. Um, as April shared, the first driver we really want to talk about this morning when it comes to when it comes to instructional ensuring that you have that alignment advantage is scheduling and protecting instructional time. Um, and specifically the master schedule. Um, I I fully believe that the master schedule is the most important and powerful instructional leadership tool that we control. Um, and oftentimes um we don't always give it the attention that it deserves to really move the needle or or move the lever, if you will. We also know that tier one instruction has to be protected, it has to be prioritized and it it cannot be interrupted. Um, I can remember being a teacher, and the the administrative team at the time would come over the intercom system and I'd be right in the middle of a lesson, right, getting right to that point where students were about to receive that instructional, you know, target. Um, and and then it was like learning was all was interrupted, and we had to go back to square one, right? Because we had a five-minute announcement. So we want to protect, prioritize, and ensure that tier one is uninterrupted. We also want to talk a little bit this morning about how intervention must be intentional, not accidental, or just left over time. Um, ultimately, you know, driver one is about ensuring that we align what we value in ELA and literacy. It's about how we allocate time, how we allocate people, um, and then what does that mean for our funding mechanisms? And so hopefully you will get that um before I complete this morning's driver one session.

State Course Catalog And Coding

SPEAKER_06 7:51

So, to kick us off thinking about this master schedule, I really think it's important as leaders that we have a master scheduling toolbox. Um, and so I'm gonna share some tools with you this morning um to really help you um ensure that you're building strategic master schedules. Um, and the first tool I want to share with you is our state funded list of K-8 subjects and 9-12 courses. Um, you may be familiar um historically, traditionally, um, the state funded list of K-8 subjects and 9-12 courses was published as a PDF version. You will see on the screen, uh, and this is hyperlinked, so you can we'll share the links. I see that Amy put that in the chat, but certainly um it is hyperlinked. If you're in PowerPoint Live, um you can click on the images and be able to catalog is that the leaders, what's important to know most is that these are the courses that the state will pay for, right? And if it's not in the catalog, it's not going to be funded. You'll be picking up those course, those, those funding mechanisms locally. So it's really essential that when we're building our master schedules, that course coding has to match what's being delivered. Um, like I said, your schedule is just not an instructional document, it's also a financial document. The state funding list really should be part of this master scheduling toolkit, um, not just something that your district office uses, but certainly both school level leaders and district level leaders have full awareness. So we as I move on, the we have traditionally produced and published a PDF version, but last year, you may or may not be aware, we decided to digitize the state-funded list of K-8 subjects in 912 courses. You can find this and Inspire. Um, be sure that you're logged in. And the beauty of this digital course version is it has all of the same information as the PDF um option. However, if you're like me back in 2016 when I first stepped into a curriculum director role um in a school system, I had a really difficult time finding course descriptions. Um, and we have completely taken that um ambiguity away and provided each of each course with its own course descriptions. Those are publicly available within this digital funded catalog. Um, and so it is probably likely that some of your course descriptions in your local course directory are outdated. So we'd encourage you to check out this um digital version to ensure that there is alignment between your course names and course descriptions, um, between the state funded list and the local list that you have within your schools and districts. Inside of this course catalog, um back to a point I made earlier. You know, what's in here is funded. Um, but there is some um uh oftentimes there seems to be some mystic uh uh as far as the numbering system is concerned. So we want to do demystify the course number um and how we approach course numbers. Um first of all, I just want to share that these course numbers that are in our statement catalog, they are um related to the national classification of instructional programs or a CIP index. And we all know that using the correct course number is critical for accurate data collection, number one, um, because that will impact your CCRPI um scores if you have inaccurate courses um coded. I've seen that happen a few different times um in my career, but it also impacts your funding. Um, and so just to kind of level set this morning, um all course numbers have a total of nine digits. Um and if you'll go the next screen, Amy. And I want to show you an example of what each one of those digits actually means. Um, so in these digits, these nine digits, the first two digits, or the prefix, if you will, that is the main area of study.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 11:35

On the right hand side of the decimal point, um, the first digit to the right is the type of instruction or the service that you're providing. Um, you'll see that noted with the with the blue shape. The second, third, and fourth digits are the minor subject areas. Um, so I'll give you an example in just a moment and talk you through what that might look like. The fifth digit is um often um overlooked by school systems, but is equally as important for specifying course information. And I'll go through what those options are for coding. And then last but not least, those last two digits are reserved for local use. Um, oftentimes you'll see um districts have their own local identification um system that they've put in place for using those last two digits. I've seen school systems um make a 10, uh, you know, one zero at the end of that um course number for the first semester or a two zero at the end for a second semester, but there are many reasons why you would um use local, those local numbers. So, an example, we're talking about English language arts this morning. Um, and so an example um on the screen, uh, this is our literature and composition one course number. As you know, this course is new um as of this year. And in this course number, you see the 23 to the left of the digit is really the prefix that indicates that this is an English language arts main subject area. You'll also notice to the first um digit to the right of the decimal, um I have a zero in that in that position, and that signals that it is a general instruction course. Um, that is the type of instruction, but there are other options, and I'll get into those in a moment about what you could put for that that truly impacts your funding mechanisms to that first decimal. The second, third, and fourth are those minor subject areas. So you'll notice there's a six in the second digit. That tells me that if I look in the course categalog, that that is a general literature course. Um, it just further defines the subject area, these yellow uh do. The one signals that it's a the first in its in its sequence, which in this case we know that literature and composition one is um aligned with the grade nine ELA standards. Um and the six further designs the course, and really for just uh the ease of chronological order, that six was placed there. So there's really no relevance other than it does go in a chronological order. And then once again, um I have a zero in that fifth digit, um, which zero and one are reserved for state use, um, and I'll share with those with you in just a moment. And then the last two are reserved for local use. So if I were to change this course number just a little bit, you click one more time, Amy. There we go. So you'll notice um in the previous example that I had a zero um in that first decimal, um, first position to the right of the decimal, which indicated that that was a general instruction, literature and composition one course. If I were to change that to a one, that would signal that this is a remedial course and I have students that I'm serving that have been identified and eligible for remedial education. Um, what that tells me as a leader, either at the school or building level, is that that course is generating an additional program weight and which means more money, right? Um, so we're generating additional revenue. I also have uh alternative service delivery options that I can put as a school system in that decimal point. Um, to the right of the decimal, I have the two. Um if I were to have a two in that blue box, um, that would signal that it is a gifted delivery model. If I were to have a three, that would be a distance learning model, a four or a five, those are typically reserved for your CTAE courses, those are lab models. A seven would be C would be work-based learning, and then eight and nine. An eight is uh general education in a special education setting, and then a nine is general education in a special education setting with special education support. You'll notice if you'll click one more time, Amy, um, the fifth digit to the right of the decimal point. I've I've reserved a zero because in this class, this is a remedial education lit and comp one class uh in my example. Um, and so you'll you'll see here that I put a zero in that fifth digit, but there are some alternative options um when you think about the fifth digit. Um, specifically, if you were to include a two in the fifth digit, that would be a locally funded course. And oftentimes we think locally funded, um, it could be a locally funded course that's not found in the catalog, but it also could be a locally funded dual enrollment course. Um, that would be an option. Uh, if you found a three in the fifth digit, that would be a credit in lieu of enrollment where students, um, often that happens, oftentimes that happens in world language courses where the student demonstrates proficiency. We'll say in Spanish. Um, we know that Spanish is the most commonly um taken uh course, world language course across the state. Um, and so if a student demonstrated proficiency using our credit in lieu of enrollment guidance, we would code that and award credit with a three in the fifth digit. Um, if the student is, if it's a dual enrollment course, there would be a four in that fifth digit. It was if it's a self-paid dual enrollment course, you would put a five in the fifth digit. Um, if it is uh an out-of-state public school credit, so thinking about kids transferring into our school systems, uh six and seven and eight, um, and even nine, um, when thinking about award and credit, certainly um you would want to apply one of those as you go to award credit on the transcript based on what the students come into your classes for. So thinking about course coding, um, it really communicates three things. Number one, ensuring that we have accurate course coding ensures that we are um reporting what student the services that students are actually receiving. It also ensures that we are reporting how they are being served. And then lastly, and it it it's it ensures our district is get trading funding for the courses appropriate to the services that we provided. So connected to that is um, I'm sorry, I mean we go back one more, is the full-time equivalent.

FTE Funding And Delivery Rules

SPEAKER_06 17:40

And when you think about FTE, um, just a couple of things that we want to point out um when it comes to aligning your systems. Um, FTE counts are determined when using student counts or those FTEs from the March and October collections. Um, but oftentimes people forget that that funding is based on a three-part average. Um, so that's important to note. Um, it the count itself actually reflects um the classes that students are enrolled in for six segments of the school day. Um, regardless of how many segments that you have on the schedule, you are reporting six for the school day for each one of those cycles. Um the data that is collected is actually collected through our Office of Technology Services. We work very closely with them and appreciate the work that they do. Um, it's important to note when you think about those course codes is that FTE funding is calculating using program categories and weights. And I'm gonna go over those in just a moment, really thinking about that first digit to the right of the decimal, um, because that is where we see a discrepancy in funding. Um, I think it's important to note that you know accurate reporting is critical. Um FTE is how we generate funding in our at the local level, and inaccurate FTE reporting is certainly um puts you at a school and a district at a loss at risk of a loss of funding. And that's certainly something we want to ensure that's not happening. So when you think about program codes um or program categories and weights, um, you will in your district leader or school leader toolbox, I'll share a couple of resources um after we talk through these program codes and weights, but there are um a variety of programs and categories and weights. You can see those on the screen. Everything listed here, these program codes, we have everything listed with the exception of special education. Um you will see here that um kindergarten, for example, is program code A. And for this uh school year, it was funded at a 1.6901 program code, a program weight. Um it's important to know that the base unit or the base program is the grades 9 through 12 program. So if you look at grade um 9 through 12, that's program code D, you'll notice that that is the base. It's 100%. So a kindergarten student, a general education kindergarten student is earning about uh almost twice as much, not quite, a little less, um, as more than a general education um 9 through 12 student. However, if you look at kindergarten EIP, you'll notice that they certainly um receive twice the amount of funding as opposed to a 912. Um, so those are important to note. It's you know, in summary, I would say that not all minutes are funded equally. So it's important that you code those uh those um courses and accurately when you are um enrolling students in your system. There are a couple of resources for your toolbox that I would love to just bring to your attention. Um the first one, if you're looking for where did she get that information for program codes and weights? Um, well, that is published annually in what's called an FTE data collection categories and weights document by our Office of Technology Services. Um, this is a great resource for your master scheduling toolkit. It provides annual FTE categories and weights, and those do update annually with the General Assembly. Um, another one that I would bring your attention to is um the student clients delivery model guidance document. Um and the purpose of this document is really to clarify how instruction is delivered and reported, reported. Um, so you'll find in here um the various EIP delivery models, for example. Um, this document, um, you'll also find ESOL delivery models as well as special education delivery models. And what I love about this document and this this tool is that it defines the delivery models, such as push in, pull out, et cetera. It clarifies how each should be coded within your student information system. So it really is a bridge to your technology services team that you can have common language and common conversations when it comes to coding courses. Um and the biggest thing is that we as leaders have to ensure that it matches what we put in our student information system, um, matches what's actually happening in our classroom. The other the last thing that I would bring your attention to when it comes to student class delivery models is within that document. Um, I believe it's on page two, but don't hold me to that. Um, there is uh what I like to call several guiding principles for delivery of service. And we get questions quite often around these guiding principles. So I just wanted to bring your attention to it. Um, the first guiding principle when you're scheduling is that a teacher can deliver content and service at the same time during the same segment. So think about a self-contained EIP teacher. That teacher is providing state level content in English language arts and EIP services simultaneously in that classroom. So that's allowable. What's not allowable is that a teacher cannot deliver two services during the same segment, such as EIP and ESOL. Those are two instructional services and they cannot be delivered at the same time in the same setting. Additionally, a teacher cannot be listed as the primary content teacher as well as an additional teacher. Um, I think that makes sense to most of us, right? The fourth element or guiding principle is that the focus of service and the FTE funding specifically has to follow program guidance. Um, so for example, um the um fourth and fifth grade EIP, the the program guidance and the EIP guidance documents would suggest that there's a minimum of 50 minutes per segment that those students should be provided services. Um, so it's it's imperative um and a requirement that um that your schedules reflect that. And then last but not least, um a student should not be scheduled to receive two services at the same time with two different delivery models. Um so for example, you could not receive um two EIP services, one in pull out, one in innovative at the exact same segment of time. Um uh when as far as reporting is concerned. All right, so now that we kind of lay the foundation, um, I've covered the rules, right? The course codes, FTE reporting, and um, and delivery models. And I know that was a very high-level overview. Everything that we just reviewed, those are non-negotiables when it comes to ensuring accuracy and ensuring that we receive uh the appropriate amount of funding and that we're being compliance with state level regulations. But compliance isn't really the goal when we think about the advantage, uh alignment advantage, right? Compliance just simply ensures that we're building a solid foundation. Um, the next layer that I want to talk about this morning is your master's schedule.

From Compliance To Instructional Design

SPEAKER_06 24:37

Um, this is where, as principals, as district leaders, we make decisions about grouping, time, staffing, placement. And that's where the work really becomes instructional, not just procedural. The schedule is where we as leaders can determine what students actually experience every day. And that is a powerful lever. What matters most to me, and what I feel like is essential, is that those decisions truly do add to that last layer, the impact that we have on student outcomes. When our structure is intentional, when our master schedules are strategic, we certainly see stronger tier one. Um, we see a more precise intervention, and ultimately we know that literacy that we see improved literacy outcomes for students. All right, so now we're gonna move into what master scheduling structure could look like across grade bands. Um, this I I just I'm gonna throw a disclaimer statement out there. The strategies and examples that I'm about to share are just that. They are examples, they are not intended to be an all-encompassing list, but really these are options to help you just start beginning to think strategically about how to define, design, and refine your own schedules based on your school's context and your student needs. So we're gonna start with elementary school.

Elementary Literacy Blocks That Work

SPEAKER_06 25:57

Um, and if you're like me and maybe you're a secondary leader and you think I'll never be an elementary school leader, well, you know, that may not always be the case because oftentimes we find ourselves in situations, maybe you get moved to the district office or you accept a role as a curriculum director. And and and I know that this was certainly true for me. I had an elementary background, um, moved into a curriculum director role, and I found myself in the world of secondary education that I had zero knowledge of other than coaching girls basketball in early in my career. So I would advise you to take note because you never know where you're gonna find yourself. So when we think about elementary school master scheduling, um, there's a couple of strategies that we want to share with you, and then we're gonna show you some examples of what that might look like. First and foremost, um, strategy one, it's essential that we protect and structure the literacy block. We have got to ensure that there is dedicated time for tier one instruction. I'm also gonna share with you this morning an example of how to be strategic about that dedicated time through what's called micro-scheduling for the literacy block. The second um strategy that I will share with you this morning is about how to strengthen tier-based instruction, tier one instruction rather, based on identified gaps. This is huge, and I don't think we talk about this enough in our in our field. Um, we often use data to inform individualized interventions, um, and and many times we don't look at performance data or outcome data to inform core instruction on or really inform what tier one should look like. And I'll give you an example of that. Um, in my career, there was a time where I worked in a school system that was 100% economically disadvantaged. Our students came in, and historically, when we looked at school-wide data, vocabulary and vocabulary knowledge and particularly background knowledge was weak with the students that we served. And this was school-wide. Um, and so as a decision, using that data to really strengthen our tier one outcomes, we made the choice, the strategic choice, to include an interactive read aloud daily. We trained our teachers on exp on how to incorporate explicit vocabulary instruction, how to build background, how to structure a discussion, all for the purpose of building two things background knowledge and vocabulary, which were two areas of our literacy block and two areas of our standards in English language art, really, that students were historically weak. Um, and we saw great gains with that strategy. So I'd encourage you to really look at your identify and identify your gaps in looking at your school-wide data to drive that um tier one literacy block. Um, another strategy for designing master schedules, um strong master schedules at the elementary level is ensuring that we schedule intervention outside of tier one. We certainly want to ensure that students receive access to tier one instruction and that interventions um are being provided outside of that core time. And then last but not least, we want to ensure that we are designing flexible, flexible intervention structures. So a couple that we're gonna just share today is a staggered intervention schedule, and that might be with or without overlap on grade levels. Um, so oftentimes our kindergarten and first grade students, many of those struggling students need similar skills, right? So you could schedule your intervention or stagger your intervention schedules where there is at least a 15 or 20 minute overlap so that your pull-out interventionists could pull from both K and one. That's an example. I'm gonna show you an example without overlap this morning. Another one that is pretty popular statewide is uh a walk-to-intervention model. Um, and this is where students are moved to targeted groups across classrooms, um, certainly um provides uh would need a structure to ensure that um our teachers are operating on a similar schedule, et cetera, um, and that these students would be provided intervention based on skill, not necessarily their teacher of record. So let's look at what this might look like in practice. So, one thing that I'm sure if I were to ask everybody on this call, you would say that perhaps you have a 90-minute literacy block. Um, and and I know that across elementary schools, um, the the same literacy block, if I were to say that you had a 90-minute in your district, it potentially could look very different in practice. So, for example, within that 90 minutes, you might have one first grade teacher that devotes 20 minutes daily to phonic, another 10 minutes a day, and and then another only maybe five minutes twice a week. Um, and I have unfortunately found myself in that situation, um, as in some previous roles in my career. So while we had a common literacy block of time, how that time was divided certainly was not equitable and instructional time varied, um, which can lead to inconsistent student learning experiences and outcomes. So, what you see on the screen is an example of a micro literacy schedule. And specifically um in this micro schedule, I'll just bring your attention to a couple of things. Um, so you'll notice it's a schedule, it's just K2. I just took a screenshot from a school system in Georgia, and you will notice that in this block, these students um have access to in this K2 example, the literacy block is 135 minutes if you were to add up all of those blocks of time. Students in this school receive 90 minutes of tier one instruction, and they also receive an additional 45-minute block of dedicated small group targeted intervention andor enrichment. You'll notice here, um, leaning into my uh converse, the conversation I had earlier about that school-wide approach, you'll see here that each every day they receive an interactive read aloud to build vocabulary knowledge. Um, you will see that the schedule, the intervention schedule is outside of tier one, ensuring that students receive access to that strong core instruction. Um, you'll also notice that it's equitable. Every classroom has a 30-minute phonics block, right? It's not left up to chance but by design. Students receive those targeted interventions in that small group setting. Some students receive those interventions from a general education teacher, while others receive it from a pull-out literacy interventionist. All right. So, not that I'm advocating for micro schedules, but certainly there are um there's some benefit to that, right? Um, curriculum outlines what to teach, but it rarely specifies how daily instructional time should be allotted, um, especially when you think about your HQYM. Um, it recommends time ranges. So, um, for example, I I know I've implemented a curriculum before that recommended 20 to 40 minutes for phonics instruction. Um, but our teachers need more guidance than that. And our students deserve equitable time regardless of who's their classroom teacher and what that schedule looks like. Um, I really feel that a strong micro schedule is just a system-level tool that ensures consistency, clarity, and alignment, um, more so than anything, so that our students have equitable access. Another example of what this scheduling might look like in a school system is a staggered intervention and enrichment block. Um, certainly, this one's not quite as detailed as the micro schedule, but in this example, you'll see that the school implemented a win time, or it's called What I Need. Um, and you'll notice that that is a block in yellow throughout the day. Um, during that time, students could receive targeted academic intervention from either a classroom teacher or perhaps even a literacy interventionist. Um, and then those students that aren't in need of academic support could engage in a set of centers that offered enrichment opportunities, or perhaps you could even leverage other um alternative staff to that support the um those students that are performing above grade level based on the options of student interest. Um, this example you'll notice that uh that win time is staggered. And what that allows as from a from a resource standpoint, personnel funding, staggering that win block allows schools to operate more efficiently by maximizing personnel across grade levels. Your teachers, your interventionists, your specialists are all scheduled strategically so that student needs are met in real time. Um, and uh we're not duplicating instructional coverage or efforts, right? I could serve um these students with a small number of literacy interventionists because they're all working towards a concerted effort to ensure that they can serve kindergarten all at once, first grade all at once, second grade all at once, et cetera, right? And so you're really maximizing the impact of those literacy interventionists. So we have created just for this webinar, um those are my two examples, right? Certainly not an exhaustive list, but we have created um some questions to support mastering the K5 Master schedule. So this QR code, we will share um uh this tool toolkit tool for your toolkit um for all three gray bands this morning. Um and the QR code will take you to a set of just what we call questions that really support your work in designing and refining your K5 Master schedules. It is not intended to be a one-time checklist, rather, these questions are really just more of a practical reflection tool for you to, as a leadership team, think about, discuss, build, adjust, monitor your schedule throughout the year. You know, as principals, the master schedule of yours is the most powerful tool that you have as a for instructional decisions. Um, and I really believe that it should be intentionally designed to reflect your local priorities. I would just encourage you that as you review the questions in these reflective guides, that you would just keep some things in mind. So some general questions you might see is is tier one literacy instruction truly protected in daily practice? Um, another question you might get is do um grouping and staffing decisions reflect our current data? Um and where is intervention happening? Um and is it aligned to what students actually need? Our goal with these is not to, once again, not to become a checklist, but truly to as help you as leaders move your master schedule from a function um to truly being a support for student outcomes and literacy growth. So we encourage you to check that out.

Middle School Schedules Beyond Traditional

SPEAKER_06 36:12

All right. So moving into middle school, um, some very similar strategies when it comes to master scheduling. Um, so those non-negotiables, for example, are similar to the K-5 master scheduling. We want to protect a daily structured literacy block. Um, where you might see some variation is strategic placement of ELA courses, right? It's important that we strategically place those um in a master schedule at the middle school level to avoid to avoid fragmentation, thinking about lunch periods or things of that nature that might get disrupted. Um, reduce transitions and unnecessary interruptions. We've moved to middle school now. Students are transitioning, um, whereas in elementary, oftentimes they are in the same classroom or only between a couple of teachers that are sharing their time versus middle school, where we know that they are constantly transitioning. Um, we also have designed uh the second strategy is design an intervention system, uh, but not as an add-on. Share some examples of that. What does a double a double block of ELA look like? Um, some dedicated intervention time, the win time. Um, often we'll see that as an ELT. We also um you could easily stagger intervention schedules um at the middle school level, uh, at the middle school level. Um, third strategy for master scheduling would be leverage teaming. We know our middle school teachers love uh to be on a team, and so ensuring that grade level teaming and opportunities for common planning uh is included. A couple other strategies that we will we are we have started talking about adolescent literacy and what does that look like? So integrating leader literacy across the content areas, ensuring that our students are reading, writing, speaking, and listening across all content areas. We also want to ensure that we create flexible grouping and for movement um within those intervention or enrichment periods. And then the last thing that we would encourage you to consider as far as strategies are concerned for middle school is just to align your staffing to what students need, not necessarily the traditional middle school schedule. So let's look at some examples that break that traditional schedule. This is um an example of an innovative A B Map Block schedule. Um, it actually is an example from Commerce City Schools. Um, the chief academic officer Philip Powell, Dr. Powell spoke at one of our teaching and learning summits this past winter and did an excellent job outlining the improvements that they've made and fully uh accredits that improvement at the middle school level to a shift in the master schedule and really thinking outside of that traditional block. So what you see in front of you is Commer City Middle School, um, they replace that traditional ELT with a 90-minute block to allow for math and ELA instruction every day. So you'll see here that um that students have a significant amount of time. Um you have about an hour and 35 minutes uh in math and an hour and 35 minutes on the B day in ELA. Um that is that is uh an expanded amount of time that students have in both of those core content areas. However, you know, oftentimes when you think about expanding math in ELA, science and social studies go to the wayside, right? And what I love about this schedule is that it also honors an hour and 35 minutes every other day of science and social studies content, which is essential for our students. Um, not only do they love science and social studies, but it also helps them unpack the world around them, right? And and be prepared for coursework later on. The other thing Commerce City Schools did in this example is they they um scheduled a dedicated applications class. So in that applications, they have an ELA applications on the days that they have uh math core instruction and they have a math application on the day they have ELA core instruction. And that is a all hands-on-deck. Uh, it is really the leaning into the philosophy that if you are not the general education teacher, your job in a school is to support the instruction happening in those classrooms, right? And so this is an all-hands-on-deck approach where all teachers have uh distinct roles, but they collaboratively approach the standards and ensure that the students have mastered that content. Ultimately, this A B block master schedule it essentially it dub it doubles the amount of instructional time that students receive math and ELA instruction while still honoring those content areas. It also allows um this school to provide targeted intervention because oftentimes we know that students leave elementary school and they still need targeted literacy interventions, and so it provides them um an opportunity to receive those. The next example that I want to um bring your attention to is the um what a double a double block of ELA and mathematics could look like in a different manner, right? Um, so you'll notice in this example that all students um in the remedial and general education in remedial and general education classes would receive a 110-minute block of ELA and mathematics daily. Students needed tar that need targeted intervention would receive daily dedicated support. So within that 110 minutes, um there is 80 minutes that's dedicated to core instruction and 30 minutes dedicated to intervention and remediation. Your honor students or your students above grade level would receive 50 minutes of core instruction from content area specialists, and um, they would also seek receive an additional enrichment period for ELA and mathematics, similar to the schedule that you saw on the previous slide. Just like elementary school, we have some questions to support master scheduling. Um, and so we would just encourage you, if if you support middle school, to um to refer to some of these reflective tools and questions.

High School Pathways And Flex Blocks

SPEAKER_06 41:43

And then last but not least, high school master scheduling strategies, specifically thinking about our ELA classrooms. Um, very similar strategies to middle school and elementary, where we want to protect access to that rigorous on-grade level tier one instruction. Um, where we see a shift here is that we really want to ensure that our students are placed in appropriate ELA courses that are aligned to their post-secondary goals, right? Whether it's enrollment, enlistment, or um, or employment, right? We have many students that are going into have multiple pathways, post-secondary and goals. So we want to encourage and ensure that they are placed in appropriate courses to support their goals. We also want to design those flexible pathways, um, as I mentioned, to ensure that they reach those goals. Um, we want to build dedicated intervention and acceleration structures. And I'm gonna show you what that could look like in a very different way on the next couple of slides. And then um, last but not least, we want to continue to support literacy integration um not in all content area, ensuring that students are reading, writing, speaking, and listening. And then um, just like in middle school, we want to align our staffing to student need, not necessarily tradition. So I have two examples for you this morning. Um, the first example really leaning into the pathways, right? Um, this example highlights individual student pathways specifically um for ELA courses. So if you look at student A, student A and student B are both below grade level. Student A and student B schedule are different. Student A in ninth grade, semester one, is going to take foundations of English, which does satisfy a core requirement, but is not recognized by TCSG. You'll notice with the course coding that I've coded that as a dot one because that student is receiving remedial services, and I want to make sure that I'm being funded for those remedial services. In the second semester, um would be enrolled in that ninth grade core course, literature, it's also a required course, literature and composition one. Student is still receiving remedial or the school is still receiving remedial funding, student is receiving remedial services. But you'll notice student A, when they move to 10th grade, clearly they were successful because we have made a strategic decision to Move them to literature and composition two. And I'm now coding that as a general education course, right? They have data so suggest that they no longer need support. Versus when you look at student B, this student, um, the this school made the decision to enroll that student in a double ELA block. Um, in the first period, they're support, they are in a course called Support for Literature and Composition One, which is an elective course receiving remedial services and funding. And in period two, they are enrolled in literature and composition one, which is our um first required course in ELA, also receiving remedial funding. That student did not make the progress um uh to the point where they needed to exit remedial services. So in grade 10, they continued that same pattern. They're in a double block of ELA, they're receiving support for literature and composition two um in first period, and then they are enrolled in literature and composition two.

SPEAKER_05 44:52

That's the second period.

SPEAKER_06 44:55

Students for the sake of time, but those are students that are on grade level versus um as compared to those who are accelerated, um, and happy to talk about more options with our ELA team, or if you're happy to reach out to me, I'd be happy to talk through those as well, those pathways. Um, but the um but for the purposes of today, I'm gonna just move on to this last example before I turn it over to um Amy. So, another example, we looked at an individual student um pathway example. Um, before I leave you this morning, I want to make sure that we look at a school-wide scheduling model. Um, many of you are probably on uh a block schedule. Um, and I know that this model itself has caught some attraction. There are a couple of high schools that have received some stage awards um for um really thinking innovatively about how to embed intervention um or enrichment into their block schedules. So you'll notice on the left-hand side, this is that traditional 90-minute block schedule with um accounting for a 40-minute lunch period. But on the right hand side, you'll notice there's been a shift in those instructional minutes. Those blocks are now reduced to an 82-minute block, still a hefty amount of instructional time, with a flex block built into the master schedule. And that flex block is an opportunity for credit recovery, an opportunity for intensive intervention, an opportunity for enrichment opportunities or study skills, you know, really depending on the student needs of uh the needs of your students across your school building. So I'd encourage you to think about how you could modify um that school-wide schedule to include those services for students. And then just as the K-5 and middle school examples, we have questions that will help support uh your mastering of 912 scheduling. Um and then last but not least, we um all of the resources that we shared with you this morning and then a few others um really to help you think through your master scheduling toolkit and to keep those gears turning have been included for you um on slide 32. So with that, whew, that's a lot. Uh I know it took a lot of time, but master scheduling is so important. So, master scheduling, intention at Ellie, that's driver one. Amy, I'm gonna turn it over to you for driver two.

Using Data Across The Whole System

SPEAKER_02 47:07

Perfect, Felicia. Thank you so much. Um I know all of you who are listening feel the same way that I do. Like I just know I listened to a master of master scheduling just now. I was a curriculum director for a long time and I've learned a few new nuggets this morning. So I hope you have too. And like Felicia said, your master schedule is a huge lever in this work that is one of the levers that we really have control of. And so thinking about that master schedule and creating a system is so important. So we so appreciate Felicia joining us this morning to um share all of that great knowledge. We're gonna move quickly into driver two, which is using data across the system and really looking at data as a system. Sometimes we are hyper-focused on getting the data and only looking at it as individual student data, but it is equally important for us to look at all of the different levels of data. It's important for us to look at school-wide data, which helps us to identify system patterns. It's important to look at classroom data that helps us to identify instructional variation. It also helps individual teachers to identify how they might have to make tweaks because of the children who are sitting in front of them in their classrooms. And of course, individual student data is important for helping to identify specific needs. We know that strong leaders look at how the system is functioning at every level, school-wide, classroom, and individual student, because each of those levels is part of the same system. And when even one of those levels is out of seek, it can create friction for the whole system. And so these aren't separate views, they're connected parts of the same system. And what we see at one level should connect to what we see at the other levels, and using data across the system is the way adults organize themselves for the benefit of every single student. And so we're gonna dive in just a little bit, and I think I'm just gonna go ahead and populate this slide because we're running short on time. But let's think about school level data. So, school level data might be things like Georgia Milestones data. Um, more specifically, it might be Georgia Milestone's domain level data, it might be screener data that is aggregated up to grade level or even school level, or it might be formative assessment data that you have in your own school system, but you're really looking at the big picture here with school-wide data. And what school-wide data helps us to see is, for example, overall literacy performance. How are we performing as a school in literacy? It helps us see those trends across grade levels. Felicia gave a great example earlier. She said that she worked in a system that had a lot of students that came from poverty. And so one of the trends that they identified early on was that students came and needed more help immediately with vocabulary and background knowledge. They knew that they had to add that in to their tier one instruction. That was that was data that they had about their school that they were able to address. It also helps us to see our strengths and gaps in tier one, which is huge. And so we want to make sure that our tier one instruction is robust and that we don't have any gaps there. And so some of the leadership questions that you might ask about school by data is what are the patterns, what are the patterns and trends that we see? Where are students consistently struggling? And what does this tell us about our tier one instruction? And so, if every time you administer a universal screener, you have a large percentage of children who are flagging on phonemic awareness, that is telling you something about your um tier one instruction, and that is telling you a place where you need to tweak and fill a gap in that tier one instruction. So, school-wide data is not just telling us about how individual students are performing, it's really a system check. It's showing us how our system is performing. So, I'm gonna move really quickly. I'm gonna start talking really fast, y'all. I'm gonna move quickly to classroom data. And so this is a little narrower. This is individual classrooms, and teachers, of course, need to be really involved in this portion of data analysis. But classroom data tells us a need for instructional changes in whole group and small group instruction. So those are decisions that teachers need to make and that teachers need to be supported in making those decisions. Um, classroom data also gives us opportunities for coaching and support. We're thrilled that our elementary schools are going to have literacy coaches next year, and this overall classroom data can really drive the decisions that a coach is making about how they're going to support the teacher. Classroom data also shows us differences across classrooms and helps to determine those instructional strengths and gaps. And I know that sometimes that third bullet talking about differences across classrooms, sometimes that can be a difficult conversation to have, but it's our job as leaders to determine those places where specific teachers may need additional support and then to deploy that support to that classroom. So looking at classroom data for different classroom sizes, it's not about learning or having teachers compete against each other. It's really about providing the support that teachers need to be successful so that their students can be successful. And so if you're doing a deep dive into this classroom data look, you've got to ask yourself the question: do teachers have the support and flexibility to make instructional changes based on classroom data? Um, support and flexibility are the key words there. In looking at the overall system, are outcomes consistent across classrooms? If not, where do we need to deploy more support? Where do we see those variations and why? Why and are we consistently seeing the same trend and variations? That is a huge piece for any literacy coaches or instructional coaches you have in your building. And what instructional practices might be driving these results? Are we stuck in some instructional practices that may not be best practice? Do we need to do an audit of what we're doing with our time? All that goes back to that master schedule. So classroom data can help us identify where alignment is strong and where it needs support. And then the third way that we look at data is that individual student data. And I think that we're really good at this, but I think that sometimes we spend so much time looking at this individual student data that we fail to look at school-wide or classroom data, and so we're not always building a strong system if we just live here in individual student data. Individual student data is important, it is imperative that we pay attention to it, but it's also imperative that we pay attention to the others. So, of course, individual student data helps us identify specific skill gaps with students, it helps us to show how the student is responding to instruction, and it also helps to determine whether or not the need for intervention or extension. Sometimes we find that students need enrichment to continue rich growth. So the questions you need to ask is what does this student need right now? We know that intervening early with students who have a need is a real key. And is it a tier one issue or is it a targeted support issue for an individual student? And how quickly can we respond? And so student-level data really drives action, but only where it's connected to instruction. And um, we have lots of resources to support the use of data and looking at data through all of these different lenses. There is an intervention instructional walkthrough tool in the Georgia Literacy Academy course 9. It helps you look at your system school-wide. There is also a resource in Georgia Literacy Academy course 10 called Three Lenses to Analyze Student Data. It talks about the three areas we've just discussed. We have two brand new toolkits that help us with individual student data, the diagnostic assessment toolkit for K2, and the Diagnostic Assessment Toolkit for 3.8. And we also have posted the Prism Toolkit Planning and Support School. That is especially for middle schools, and it's an excellent leadership tool to help you take a look at how you're using data across your

Intervention Decisions And Diagnostic Tools

SPEAKER_02 57:33

school. And I see that we have three minutes, and so you're going to get just a little um preview, we'll say, of driver three, and maybe in our next one we'll spend a little bit more time on driver three. But driver three is all about intervention systems, and Felicia did a great job of talking about how we can put pull our intervention systems into our master schedule, and that is so important. We always need to be looking at whether our intervention is aligned to tier one if we're addressing something. It's so important that what we're providing matches the needs of the students, and also have we been on time or are we responding too late? This next slide are two of the flow charts from our two new diagnostic assessment toolkits, and so you'll have links to these and you can dig into these. We're really excited about these um two toolkits. Dr. Lindstrom and I will be doing a deep dive at our technical assistance chat on May 14th, May 13th from 12 to 1. But these are just two flow charts that help you to make those really important um intervention decisions. And we'll do a deeper dive of these a little bit later on. Again, I've linked those toolkits, the K2 and the 3.8 toolkits. And y'all please know that sometimes there's some overlap. Sometimes you need some of the tools in the K2 toolkit for third graders. And so just know that there is some overlap. And also just a reminder about the understanding the process for screening and also building your intervention plans, is there. So, April, I have given you one minute to wrap us up.

Reflection Questions And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 59:31

Okay, well, what I'm gonna challenge this group to do is for us not to sit and read all of these bullets. But what I'd encourage you to do is to come back and to reflect on where are the misalignments that might be happening in your schools or your school districts. These one, two, three, four, five, six bullets are huge. And I just invite you to take some time and just to really think about it. Because I think this is a great time for you to really be prioritizing where are you going to lead into the next school year? What are the things that are going well? But where are the misalignments that you can find? So as you go back one more slide, Amy, real quick. That's okay. Um, I think these are three big questions. Time. Is it protected and purposeful? Data, is it informing decisions and support? Is it timely and aligned? And I really would encourage you as leaders to be able to answer those questions specifically specifically and where you find opportunities to grow each of those um areas, go back to resources and tools, maybe re-listen to a section. I think we could spend all day on master scheduling, and it would just lead to more and more conversation. But as a leader, the most important thing for you to figure out right now is which gear needs the most attention in your building right now. Don't try to tackle all three at one time. Where's the one that needs the most attention? Use these resources and tools, reach out to us as you um need us, and we'll be happy to continue um joining in collaborative conversation. We just gave you the presentation link, and here is our personal information so you can reach out. Thank you again for joining us today. Um, and go take a brain break now because you've gotten lots of information in the last 62 minutes at this point. So thank you, Cindy, and we'll turn it back over to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

All right. Well, thank you guys so much for being a part of today. Uh, we appreciate you guys from the DOE sharing such practical information and such a large amount of um supports and resources for people to rely upon. And I love, April, what you said in the chat about using those questions with teachers and having them looking at the data as well, because all of us need to be kind of thinking like that. Um, I love focusing on the systems that we have in place because if we have one teacher who's doing an outstanding job, how can we make that be systematic across every uh classroom that teaches that same content? So lots of great information this morning. Thank you all for your participation.