going to have to share your space.’” Carri added that
O’Donnell made sure every enrichment program had
its own box of supplies, and all staff, community, and
family partners were asked to sign a
shared/communal space agreement, excerpted in
part below:
“In order for innovation such as expanded
learning time for students to be successful, there
needs to be a general consensus that the learning
spaces in a school are NOT specific to any one
class and/or any one teacher, etc. The learning
spaces are for ALL of our students and can and
will be used to their fullest capacity to enrich
learning opportunities. Every effort will be made
to respect one another, our things, our property,
our equipment, and our materials. If we all adopt
the mindset that the learning spaces are for
student learning and we as teachers/facilitators
are only borrowing/using the space when it is
our turn to be the teachers/facilitators, knowing
full well, when we are not in that space some
other teacher/facilitator is using the space to
enrich/teach our students, then we can work
together in our communal space successfully.”
Identify one primary community partner.
Pennington already had a strong partnership with its
local YMCA, which provided after-school care for
students before expanded learning time was
implemented. Once the Pennington team decided to
expand the school day, the YMCA was one of the first
stakeholders approached, say Craig and O’Donnell.
“To any school trying to do this, you need one
primary co