By Isabelle Chiu
Online Sports Editor
Lizzy Tsuang
Executive News Editor
Mira Costa staff approved the Wednesday office hour schedule, effective in the 2015-16 school year.
According to Manhattan Beach Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews, of 100 staff members that voted, 65 were in favor of the collaboration schedule and 35 were opposed. The voting window opened on Thursday and results were released at 2 p.m. on Friday.
“We had a really great voting turnout,” Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers Association President Shawn Chen said. “To me, the most important thing is that everyone gets a chance to vote, and I think we did just that.”
The new schedule will include two collaboration periods every Wednesday in a full five-day school week. In the first period, the English, History, Visual and Performing Arts and Foreign Language departments will conduct collaborative meetings while the Math, Science, Physical Education and Special Education departments have office hours. The departments will be reversed in the second period. The two collaboration periods will be before and after lunch, each lasting for an hour.
“The pilot of this new program is going to give the staff an opportunity to work together,” Costa Associated Student Body advisor Lisa Claypoole said.
Matthews will make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees for its approval of the new schedule at the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday.
“The schedule’s intentions have amazing potential,” Chen said. “There’s going to be issues when it is implemented; however, we are placing a lot of trust in our students, and I think in order for this to work, that trust needs to be reciprocated.”
Leave a Reply