Scheduling

Every Once instructor needs 3 hours of time officially in their schedule for every 10 students they will be working with (15 minutes of instruction for every student plus some additional time for transitions between students when needed). To be clear, during those scheduled hours, the Once instructor will not be available in any other capacity (to be a substitute, aid, etc). To make sure that every student in the Once program receives their daily 15 minutes of instruction, it is crucial that class, student, and instructor schedules include explicit times and locations for every Once session. To make sure students don’t miss the same part of their base schedule each day, students can receive Once during different periods each day. Successful schedules maximize student and instructor time while causing the least amount of disruption to the general classroom instruction and rhythm.

Below are 3 sample schedules.

An aide provides Once full-time, tutoring in the morning and afternoon. Five hours of tutoring each day would serve 20 students. A rotating schedule would ensure that students don't miss the same period each day.

In this sample, 4 instructors work with 6 students each (all 24 kinder students) in Class A during the 90-minute “reading” block. The same six instructors work with all 24 kindergarten students in Class B during their 90-minute reading block. The same six instructors work with all 24 kindergarten students in Class C during their 90-minute reading block.

Kindergarten paraprofessionals provide Once instruction to 12 students over the course of a 3-hour block. While classrooms must adjust to a morning without para support, differentiation becomes easier as students learn to read faster than ever.