Public schools will start and end at slightly different times in the coming school year, with each individual school to decide on its exact scheduling.
Alison Gendar, spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), told amNewYork Metro that the school day for students will remain six hours and 20 minutes, but schools will be adjusting arrival and dismissal times to accommodate the new, 60-minute-long professional development block for teachers and paraprofessionals.
“What is new this school year is that the DOE is no longer approving 30 min blocks for professional development,” Gendar told amNewYork Metro. “This affected schools citywide. Schools may be adjusting arrival and dismissal time to accommodate the 60 min professional development block.”
For most schools, there will be 60 minutes of professional development allotted for Mondays, per the UFT contract. Gendar said that there are exclusions, but generally the professional development block falls on Mondays.
The professional development block will impact the start and end times on Mondays, but it is unclear how it will affect the rest of the school week. Gendar said that schedules will have to be somewhat consistent.
“You have to have some kind of consistency, otherwise the bus schedule just gets completely balled up,” Gendar said. “So, I’m not sure what the schools are doing for the other days, to be honest.”
The professional development block won’t have an impact on the number of hours students are in school, the DOE told amNewYork Metro.
Each school will determine its own start and end times, as long as the school day for students begins after 8 a.m. and ends before 3:45 p.m. for most students.
“Every school is sort of doing their own thing,” Gendar said. “So the start time for schools, depending on how they’re configured, could start at 8 a.m., or it could start at 8:30 a.m. Any of that is in the mix, basically.”
P.S. 154 The Windsor Terrace School, for example, posted its new school day hours online recently, informing the school community that the school day will begin at 8 a.m. and end at 2:20 p.m.
For single-session K-12, 6-12, and high schools, school days must start later than 8 a.m. and end before 4:20 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, and no later than 3:45 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
“The start of the school day for students can’t be earlier than 8 a.m.,” Gendar added. “Schools do between 8 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. There are some schools that ask for special compensation to start earlier.”
The professional development block is part of the new UFT contract, which was overwhelmingly approved by public school teachers this year on July 10. The school year is scheduled to start Thursday, Sept. 8.
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