As published in the Brookline Tab.

By Mike Offner  

How should children in the Brookline schools spend their days?

How much time should they spend in their classrooms, at recess, in physical education, music or art? How much should they spend in “community time” such as morning meeting, choice time, and social thinking?

Should our children’s days be built around large “blocks” of minimum required time dedicated to “core” subjects aligned with the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS)?

Or should their days reflect recognition and appreciation of interdisciplinary learning, such as the English skills that are inherent to studying almost anything and/or the math skills inherent to learning concepts such as demographics, opinion surveys and polls, federal and state budgets, or the Electoral College?

To what extent should principals direct teachers on how to manage the day and the curriculum versus giving teachers independence and autonomy to do what the teachers feel is best for their students?

Parent input is critical as the Brookline School Committee thinks through these questions with the central administration (Office of the Superintendent).

As context, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) requires that public school districts provide a minimum of 900 hours per school year of “structured learning time” for elementary school students. In Brookline this applies to all students in grades 1-8. (The requirement for K is 425 hours and the requirement for high school is 990 hours).

The DESE gives local school districts broad discretion to decide what counts as structured learning time. However, the DESE states explicitly that physical education and health classes do count, while also listing certain activities that do not count, including, most notably, recess, lunch and “transition time” in going from one activity to another.

(Though there is a bill in the state legislature, H. 235, that would mandate at least 20 minutes of recess daily and require the DESE to count recess as structured learning time without increasing the 900 hour requirement.)

An analysis of the 2017-2018 Brookline schools’ calendar reveals that Brookline could allow for 30 minutes of recess per day Monday through Thursday and 20 minutes on Friday for grades 1 to 8.

This plan would work with an allowance of 25 minutes for lunch, 20 minutes of transition time Monday through Thursday and 15 minutes of transition time on Fridays. (There is no guidance from the DESE on how to estimate transition time, so by implication it is up to each district to make its own good faith assumptions).

With Brookline’s 180-day school year and 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (or 1:40 p.m.) standard days, “fitting everything in” while achieving 900 hours of structured learning time is challenging. But that is what we must work with, barring some substantial change (e.g., a longer school year, longer daily hours, and/or H. 235 becoming law).

The School Committee’s working draft recess policy is 20 minutes per day. Since recess and all activities “compete” for time in our tight schedule, the Committee must factor in time for recess when determining the general time allocation guidelines that are communicated to principals and teachers at the beginning of each year.

The School Committee’s Curriculum Subcommittee will also address broader issues about Brookline’s time allocation guidelines. For example, the formal document for 2017-18 includes the following “block” definitions for our K-8 schools (with percent of total school time indicated in parentheses): English Language Arts (29 percent); Mathematics (16 percent); Social Studies (8 percent); Science (8 percent); Art (2 percent); Music (4 percent); Physical Education (4 percent); World Languages (3 percent); Lunch/Recess (13 percent); Transitions/Snack (5 percent); and Community Time (8 percent).

But there is nothing in the state regulations that dictates that time blocks be categorized like this. For example, Brookline could build time guidelines around categories called, “Liberal Arts,” “Science, Social Science and Math,” and “Teacher’s Choice.”

In fact, the DESE, in a section on “Time & Learning Questions & Answers,” even allows structured learning time to include activities when there is not a teacher present, so long as “the learning activity in which the student is engaged is consistent with the curriculum for study of a core subject or other subject approved by the school committee and part of a program designed by a teacher.”

Parents who feel strongly about recess, time allocations or related issues should reach out to the Curriculum Subcommittee members, Helen Charlupski, Susan Wolf Ditkoff and Barbara Scotto. Parents might also reach out to Deputy Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Nicole Gittens, whose responsibilities include both development and implementation of the time allocation guidelines.

With both the School Committee and Office of the Superintendent focusing on these issues, now is the time for all interested parents to share our thoughts.