Flexible scheduling: Implementing an innovation

Abstract

Teachers, school library media specialists (SLMSs), and principals in six elementary schools were interviewed to explore the ways in which schools have successfully implemented flexible scheduling in their libraries. Overall findings and conclusions of the study are linked with Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory and compared with Shannon’s 1996 study of flexible scheduling implementation in two Library Power schools. The voices of the principals, teachers, and SLMSs are heard. Patterns and themes are discussed in terms of assertions that can be made about commonalities among the approaches taken by the six schools. The individual schools’ stories are provided in the appendix, “Stories of Successful Implementation of Flexible Scheduling,” demonstrating what worked in each of the different situations. While generalization is not appropriate with a qualitative study such as this, it is important to consider what the conclusions might mean in other situations. Flexible scheduling was found to merely be a tool that facilitated curriculum-related programmatic features in these schools. Implementation and continuation required education and vigilance to ensure that everyone involved understood the potential and took advantage of the possibilities. The term “flexible scheduling,” as it pertains to school library media centers, entered the vocabulary of school library media specialists (SLMSs) in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. It had various interpretations then, as it does today. “Flexible scheduling” and “flexible access” have sometimes been interchangeably used. The terms have both been used to mean providing open access to the library media center throughout the day, rather than only during a scheduled “library time.” The terms have also been used to mean eliminating a rigid schedule of regular library times for each class, allowing teachers to schedule their classes into the library as needed for appropriate lengths of time to suit the learning activity that was planned. For the purpose of this study, flexible scheduling was broadly considered: a scheduling arrangement that allows for variation in library use, rather than having each class scheduled into the library for a regular, fixed period. This definition does not include any programmatic features or describe how flexibility occurs. In secondary schools, the school library and its resources are typically considered integral to the curriculum of the school. Students and classes tend to visit libraries in secondary schools on a point-of-need basis, when learning tasks dictate access to information, and the library itself is viewed as an extension of the classroom. The question of whether scheduling should be flexible or fixed tends to arise less frequently at the secondary level, especially in high schools. At the elementary school level, however, the school library is frequently viewed in a more isolated

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