Education Austin says 7 out of 8 schedules unbeneficial to teachers, students

AUSTIN, Texas — Austin ISD is proposing changes to secondary teacher schedules to save money next school year. The district is looking to change secondary teachers' schedules to 7 out of 8. This would eliminate one planning period and add another class period for secondary teachers.

Ken Zarifis, president of Education Austin, the teacher’s union for Austin ISD, explains the 7 out of 8 schedule changes.

"The school day is broken into 8 class periods. Currently, the district operates that teachers teach 6 out of 8 periods out of the course of a day. Under the state mandate and state law, all the teachers in the state of Texas have a planning period every day, one planning period. Austin Independent School District saw the wisdom in having secondary teachers be provided extra planning time because of the demands of teaching..." Zarifis said.

Now, the district is proposing to take away one of the two planning periods from secondary teachers and use it as an additional class period.

"Not only does going to 7 out of 8 classes eliminate one of the planning periods for teachers to let them plan, to grade, to mentor, to tutor, to build relationships, and to create great outcomes for kids. What it's also going to do simultaneously is increase teacher workload by almost 20% because all secondary teachers will have another class," Zarifis said.

Dozens of teachers and parents spoke out at last Thursday's board meeting in opposition to a 7 out of 8 schedules.

"I am fearful that we are going to lose so many of our great teachers next year. There must be an alternate way to address the budget concerns without punishing students and teachers," said Christina S., parent.

Teachers said this would directly impact students because under this change, teachers would have around 20 to 30 additional students and their time to plan would be shortened.

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"You cannot build relationships with 210 students with the amount of time they're giving us to plan and grade," said Bree Rolfe, AISD teacher.

"If AISD moves forward with this plan, I believe that teachers will leave. I will leave," said Katie Holbrook, AISD teacher, and parent.

Like teachers, some AISD parents are against this change.

"This is not a sweatshop where we want to squeeze away every available minute. We need some unstructured time, so the teachers have the flexibility to do what they went to school for and do what it is they are good at because they are the ones who know how to educate our children," said Emma Summers, AISD parent.

Little was said about the 7 of 8 change at Thursday's board meeting, but a board member asked Superintendent Dr. Stephanie Elizalde if this change could be taken up at the next meeting or an upcoming meeting and this was her response:

"I would have to take that up with as an area for us to get together and discuss. There's a, in terms of the day-to-day operations, but I'm sure we can find something to meet everybody's needs with regard to the process of how we would work towards resolving the budget issues are and that being one of them," Dr. Elizalde said.

CBS Austin reached out to Austin ISD for a statement and received this information sheet: