Staffing and Scheduling During the Pandemic

Two of the best defenses against the transmission of the COVID-19 virus are physical distancing and open, well-ventilated spaces. Other interventions are also important, and we outline these in our Health Guidance chapter. To maximize health as schools plan for a return to in-person instruction, creative staffing models are needed to spread students out, and a school’s outdoor space becomes a valuable asset. Outdoor classrooms can be set up on the schoolyard or in a local park. Students can be broken into cohorts and additional staff assigned to lead each group. In this section, we provide ideas to support your staffing, scheduling, and logistics planning for bringing students back to campus, outside.

There are many benefits to learning outside — from increased social-emotional well-being to enhanced cognitive functioning — and they are outlined in our Health Guidance chapter. The planning and investments you do now to take your school day outside in response to COVID-19 will have lasting value for your students beyond the pandemic.

Staffing

In accordance with local public health guidelines, schools will need to break classes into smaller groups or cohorts to reduce the teacher/student ratio. Because there is often an insufficient number of credentialed teachers to support reduced ratios, reassigned support staff, district staff, or community-based partner staff become key to implementation. This graphic presents a visual of the high-level factors that schools and districts may need to consider as they plan for in person instruction. For more on curriculum, see the Teaching and Learning section of this chapter.

Scheduling

In addition to considering who will support staffing needs and what will be taught using the outdoor space, schools and districts need to consider the logistics of scheduling and facilities set-up. If we assume that schools begin in-person instruction with 50 percent of students inside and 50 percent outside, schoolyards and green spaces surrounding the school will need to be built out to accommodate outdoor classrooms for teaching. The number of classrooms will depend on a school’s space availability, the number of students, and the decision to either share outdoor classrooms or create one for each teacher. This graphic represents different scenarios based on the percentage of students who need to be accommodated.

There are challenges and benefits to each scenario, which can be generalized as follows:

Building more outdoor classrooms increases the cost and time to procure materials, decreases scheduling complexity, and grants less space for recess and physical education, particularly for schools with a smaller footprint.
Building fewer outdoor classrooms decreases the cost and time to procure materials, increases scheduling complexity, and allows more space for recess and physical education, an important consideration for schools with a smaller footprint.

The National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative encourages schools and districts to consider taking all students outside to learn every day as their first option for in-person instruction. Your school will make the decisions that are right for your context and needs. This section of the National Outdoor Learning Library is intended to provide insights, context, and inspiration for planning your staffing and scheduling. For information more on facilities planning specifically, see the chapter on Creating Outdoor Spaces which includes more detailed site planning examples and many tools and resources to help your district begin the site planning process. We also have additional examples available on this page with case studies from schools that are taking learning outside.

Credits

This article was written by Vanessa Carter, MA, San Francisco Unified School District and Rachel Pringle, MA, Green Schoolyards America. The graphics are by Ida Li, Green Schoolyards America, with review from Vanessa Carter and Rachel Pringle, and with support from a subgroup led by Whitney Cohen, MA, Life Lab.

National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative

The National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative supports schools and districts around the country in their efforts to reopen safely and equitably using outdoor spaces as strategic, cost-effective solutions to increase physical distancing capacity onsite and provide access to abundant fresh air. The Initiative seeks to equitably improve learning, mental and physical health, and happiness for children and adults using an affordable, time-tested outdoor approach to keeping schools open during a pandemic.