Just as traditional school organization isolates teachers, so, too, is it stingy with time for working and learning together. Many perceive time as the biggest barrier to school change. For these reasons, rethinking and restructuring time is central to building a learning culture. Through a combination of creative planning and everyone pulling together, these award-winning schools demonstrated that they could find time to do what was needed, time both inside and outside the school day. Though the important conversations take place everywhere, from formal committees to shared rides home, putting meeting time into teachers' schedules ensures that the talking will occur.
Schools make teachers' protected meeting and planning time available in several ways.
They restructure available professional development and traditional meeting time to make it serve their goals. In some cases, they reschedule student learning time to provide extended periods for teachers to work together. Some schools use support personnel, such as substitutes, teacher assistants, student teachers, or interns, to release teachers from their classrooms so they can take part in professional development experiences. Faculty meetings and professional development days are restructured to get the most out of them. In fact, there are no longer routine faculty meetings at Shallowford Falls, International High School, Montview, Hungerford, or Wilson.