Your planning time is for instructional preparation, parent-teacher conferences, evaluating students’ work, and planning. It must be scheduled within the instructional day and cannot be less than 45 minutes daily.

PLC/PLT are for Wednesday afternoons. If your team chooses to hold it during planning, you should get Wednesday afternoon for your planning time (Time for time). You may be asked to give up planning for MTSS, but it needs to be mutually agreed upon with minimal impact on teacher planning. All IEP meetings should be scheduled with your prior approval and DO NOT always need to happen during your planning time. Protect your time to plan by knowing Section 5.08 of the contract.

5.08-1

Planning time is essential and will be granted to those teachers engaged in classroom instruction. Planning time shall be free of supervisory duty and appropriate to the instructional assignment. The length of planning time shall be equal to one (1) regular period of instruction in middle and high school or equal to forty-five (45) consecutive minutes per day in elementary school. Unique schedules constructed with teacher involvement and approval may vary from the norm. (08/17/05)

5.08-2

Planning can include professional responsibilities such as lesson planning, grading, parent phone calls/conferences, Exceptional Student Education (ESE) Individual Education Plan (IEP meetings), English Language Learner (ELL) Language Education Plan (LEP) meetings, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) meetings, grant writing, and attendance at non-mandatory in-services. Student meetings mandated by state or federal law shall be scheduled in advance based upon the classroom teacher’s calendar at a mutually agreed upon time. Such meetings shall be scheduled efficiently in order to accommodate parents’ needs and to minimize, when feasible, the impact on individual classroom teacher planning time.