On April 16th, the Seven Hills English Department teachers engaged in a regular standing department meeting to discuss progress, goals, and difficulties. During the meeting, they debated the issue of different course sections having varying difficulty levels. They also took an action step, deciding to put more frequent meetings in place between teachers of the same course.
Throughout the allotted time, the department broadly discussed whether the consequences of sectional discrepancies outweighed the benefits of teacher autonomy. In the end, the group reached a consensus that the department would likely benefit from minor adjustments to decrease these inconsistencies, and they turned their efforts to responding accordingly.
The ultimate solution was to have each course’s teachers meet more often to discuss the progression and workload of their respective sections. These sorts of meetings already occur, but their frequency has varied up to this point. “I think it’s a renewed commitment to do it,” Department Chair Mark Beyreis said. “The classes where [meetings] happen the least line up with the classes most often identified [as having discrepancies].” These sorts of meetings could occur anywhere from once a week to once a quarter, but the ultimate goal is to unify sections of courses despite differences in teachers.
Since the solution is flexible, various meeting plans exist between each course’s teachers. Gleiner and Beyreis, the two AP Lang teachers, plan to meet at the beginning of each unit to discuss the workload of future assignments and the unit’s objectives. Beyreis and next year’s new teacher, both of whom will teach Honors British Literature, are already engaging in discussions and plan to closely align their sections with each other. For Memoir and Social Justice, Gleiner and Whelan have started planning first-quarter goals and assignments through regular meetings. They are also planning to work together over the summer to design this course’s objectives, units, and assessments, so they applied for a summer grant given to teachers working to improve curriculums at Seven Hills.
These actions are significant first steps toward evening out sectional discrepancies throughout the course. The plan does leave much room for interpretation, but this could be just what the school needs to support its emphasis on teacher autonomy. New challenges throughout the coming year will likely shape the somewhat vague promise of increased collaboration into a series of more concrete plans dependent on different courses and teachers.
Overall, Seven Hills is incredibly fortunate to have teachers who want to work on improving themselves and the curriculum, even though they have no obligation to do so. The school, and most importantly, the teachers, give students a voice that is heard, a difficult feat to accomplish in a high school. Allowing students to speak freely enhances the educational experience in ways that are very true to the individualized institution Seven Hills identifies with. The school and students are very fortunate to have staff with both profoundly knowledgeable and open minds.
