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Saturday, January 4, 2014

Chicago School Rations Bathroom Visits to Help Prepare for Common Core Tests - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Chicago School Rations Bathroom Visits to Help Prepare for Common Core Tests - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Chicago School Rations Bathroom Visits to Help Prepare for Common Core Tests

How far will schools go to prepare for Common Core tests? From a teacher in Chicago, I received the following memo, delivered to faculty this week.
Dear Faculty,

Welcome back and Happy New Year! In order to maximize student learning and reduce the loss of instructional time, we are implementing two new restroom policies.

1. Designated Restroom Times - Take your class to use the restroom only during your allotted time so that multiple groups of students are not competing to use the facilities. Also, the expectation is that the restroom break should last only five minutes. Before leaving for the restroom, clearly communicate the behavioral expectations and the time limit. Use your watch or stopwatch to time the students and praise them when they meet the behavior and time expectations.

Sign up for your restroom time slot in the main office by Tuesday, January 7.

2. Restroom Passes - In addition to scheduled restroom breaks, students will be given restroom passes to use if they need to use the restroom outside of the scheduled time. Students will be given two restroom passes to use between now and the end of the quarter. They can choose to hold on to them and trade them in for a reward at the end of the quarter. Following these guidelines:
Have students fill in their names as soon as they receive them. Passes are invalid if names are