The new school year brings a new schedule for Missoula County public school students

MISSOULA – A new school year has begun and with it a new schedule that hopefully offers more flexibility for both teachers and students.

“There’s no perfect schedule. But I think our real goal for this year was to continue to try to give our staff adequate time to collaborate and to meet. And to really work on student goals,” said Vinny Giammona, assistant superintendent of Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS).

The new start time for kindergarten through fifth grade will be 8:10 a.m., with school ending at 2:55 p.m. Previously, classes started at 8:25 a.m. and school ended at 3:00 p.m. for kindergarten through third grade and 3:30 p.m. for fourth and fifth grade.

For students in grades six through eight, classes begin at 7:48 a.m. and end at 2:43 p.m. Instead of 8:15 a.m., classes begin at 3:25 p.m.

Finally, senior high school students will start at 8:35 a.m. and finish at 3:35 p.m., meaning that instead of starting at 7:50 a.m. as before, they will start and finish at 3:00 p.m.

The main reason for these schedule changes is that teachers did not have enough time during the day to meet and do their work.

“We all struggle to find time and we know there is never enough time. But it was important for us to create a schedule that would give us a little more time after school to do this collaboration,” Giammona told MTN.

MCPS hopes that the extra time at the end of the day will allow teachers to better collaborate and discuss student performance and possible steps to ensure their success.

“If you look at a teacher’s workday, you know, class, course, day after day, it can be pretty intense. And so at the end of the day, they have this extended period of uninterrupted time where they can come together and collaborate, talk about student data, talk about what’s working in the classroom,” Giammona explained. “We’ve really focused on having these authentic conversations about where students are and what our interventions and our instruction look like.”

The reason for the changes in the high school timetable was a study conducted several years ago to examine which times are best suited for the development of high school-age students.

“This study came along and discussed how beneficial a later start time for high school would be. And so they used some of these pediatrician guidelines to adjust our start time.”

Ultimately, MiCPS hopes that this new schedule will provide more flexibility for both teachers, students and families at the end of the day.