Getting Started

Early last year, our State Support Team support person and I discussed professional development available for our staff. She said that she would be glad to do a presentation for us on Teacher Based Teams (TBT) at an upcoming professional development day.

Her presentation was great; and before I knew it, our teachers were discussing how we could make the time for Teacher Based Teams. It is challenging to change a schedule in the middle of the school year, but it was clear our teachers wanted this to happen.

Urbana East Elementary is a third and fourth grade building; so, two groups began to come up with two different sets of solutions. I attended many of these meetings and often found myself bouncing back and forth to let the other grade level know what the other grade level was thinking. Our initial training took place mid-fall, but we weren’t able to come up with a solid plan until much later.

Teachers decided to start TBTs in January. The solution that our teachers came up with wasn’t the ideal, but it showed that our teachers were already a team ready to compromise and collaborate to make things happen. The fourth grade teachers would take the third grade students at the end of the day during third grade TBT meetings, and the third grade teachers reciprocated when the fourth grade teachers were having their TBT meetings. The teachers who were in charge of two sets of classes decided to do some independent and/or buddy reading. Independent reading was already a component of our reading program. This became a schedule adjustment for many teachers.  In addition, teachers in charge also saw the students off at the end of the day. This required a lot of organization and classroom management, but our teachers handled it like pros. Teachers met every other week sometimes adding additional time for Teacher Based Teams.

In my next blog, I will begin to talk about how our teachers got started having TBT meetings.