I hate change. More than the average person who claims to hate change, I think. I had a pair of boots that I got at a swap meet when I was in my 20s. I loved them so much that I had them resoled about ten times before they finally fell apart and I had to throw them away at the ripe age of 31. I still think about those boots sometimes. They were comfortable and slouchy and they went with everything. But times change, and what perhaps looked decent on me back then would probably look silly on me now—let’s be honest.

Like many of you, I am a creature of habit. This is especially true when it comes to my work. Change makes me uncomfortable and I thrive in a routine that feels familiar. Naturally, when I joined the CAPS team, I had existential anxieties surrounding all of the new changes being proposed, but it’s in my nature to trust the experts, so I listened to the veteran educators from all sorts of different educational backgrounds tout the magic of the PLC process, and I continued to keep an open mind. Month after month, I listened to all the presenters share testimony and data regarding the shifts in student achievement that came along with shifts in educational practices at various institutions. The takeaways are obvious: aligning formative assessments with course-alikes and analyzing data to intervene when students are struggling are processes that work, but like many of you, my one question always remains: where will we find the time? As we all know, our Wednesday late start schedule is quite rigid, and my PLC partner and I do not share a common prep period. I see her maybe once a month if I’m lucky. And when we do see each other and get to sit down to talk shop, 40 minutes zip by before I’ve even had a chance to blink. The components of the PLC process, on paper, sound wonderful. In practice they feel quite untenable considering the schedule we have now at Hart.

What if we simply had more time? I was speaking to Cynthia Ross a while back and she reported to me that a common theme uniting staff in the feedback forms she sends out periodically is that everyone craves more time. What if, in addition to our LSW time, we also had an additional 40 minutes built into our weekly schedule that was exclusively for PLC procedures? This would be weekly time where we could plan common formative assessments, analyze data, or even (my personal favorite) pull students for intervention. I’m no master schedule czar, so I won’t provide any specifics, but I have looked at several models where this would work and the changes to our existing schedule would be minimal.

My AP Lang students are struggling more this year than I ever remember them struggling. I have invited the same twelve or so students to intervention during lunch since I recognized they were struggling in August. Only one shows up, and even then, because I advise so many clubs and house so many students who simply like to hang out in my room during lunch, my attention is naturally divided when the one intervention student comes in. What if intervention didn’t have to happen outside of the regular school day or during times where we simply want to, say, eat some lunch?

Like many of you, I feel territorial about the work I’ve done to cultivate an effective instructional routine with my students. In 2018, when Jason d’Autremont sought staff feedback about the possibility of implementing an advisory period, I balked. I thought back to my Brooklyn charter school experience from 2012-2016 and I remembered all the time we wasted during our advisory periods. It’s difficult for me not to use my prior negative experience as a template to judge all the bad things that could happen in the future and guard my current comfort like a feral dog. However, I have to remember what I’ve learned at CAPS and that is while change can be uncomfortable, sometimes it is necessary. And the results can often be so much better. Building in a weekly 40-minute PLC period is not the same as my experience with advisory. It’s structured time that has resulted in massive success at other institutions. The reality is that I’m not here to be comfortable; I’m here to teach. I simply need more time to reach all of my students.

At the last CAPS meeting I attended, I was speaking to our colleague Zach Koebel and he pointed out something so simple, but so profound. PLC procedures are things we already do, but now we are being asked to do them with more intentionality and with more coordination between course-alikes. So we can think of the shift to a professional learning community like a massive change that—if you’re anything like me—will keep you up with massive anxiety at night, or we can think of it as an adjustment that makes our lives easier and allows us to approach instruction and intervention with more focus.