Flexible scheduling

[Pat Ropchan]

I work in a 1-12 school and have always had a flexible schedule in the library. Now we have a new Elementary principal whoi wants to go to a weekly period for skills instruction. I know I can find this myself but don't have time...I meet with her in the morning. Can you point me in the direction of some article I can use in my meeting with her?

Pat

[Carole A.]

I'm facing the same dilemma...I had mixed set/flexible scheduling last year, and it was wonderful. This year I'm probably going to be "in the rotation", which means a class coming in for a lesson every 45 minutes. My arguments against this (not that they've helped) have been:
Having the library tied up all day every day precludes students coming in as they want to during the week. I had some kids checking out books every day. With the fixed schedule, because I will be tied up all of the time they will only be able to come once a week.
I will also not have the flexibility to re-schedule classes if they have to miss. I was able to do this last year.
I have no aide, so I will have to figure out a way to be in two places at once..behind the checkout desk and helping kids choose books. The more savvy kids have figured out how to hunker down behind the stacks to hide from me. It will become a discipline issue.
I've also noted that teachers will not be able to bring in classes for research on an as-needed basis, as the library will be in use all day every day.
I went to the ALA website and typed in "scheduling" and got a lot of good responses. As I said, I'm sunk for this year because of high enrollment, but have been promised that after this year I can go back to my mixture of fixed/ flexible scheduling, which I loved.