A recent article, “The schools where even young children change classes,” posted by the Hechinger Report had me go back and revisit a blog I wrote over 15 years ago that explored the same topic. My blog, “Platooning,” explored an article from Harvard Education Letter that described:

“Platooning (or departmentalization) as nothing new. It’s what middle and high schools have been doing for ages—divvying up instruction according to subject area, with students rotating to different rooms headed up by different teachers for different subjects. What is new is applying that idea to elementary schools, long the bastion of a one-teacher-per-classroom model.”

Exploring the pros and cons of departmentalizing, the Harvard report noted that elementary school teachers are trained to be generalists who spend the entire year with one group of about 25 kids and teach them all the subjects. Those favoring the platooning strategy identified the raising standards, especially in math and science, as requiring teachers to receive more specialized professional development in one or two content areas versus trying to develop the expertise to teach all the content areas.

Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom had been that younger students benefit from the stability and continuity provided by having the same teacher every day all day for the whole year. Some feared that teachers making individual choices when teaching all subjects might emphasize some ”favorite” contents areas over others.

Now, more than 15 years later, the Hechinger Report shares, “As schools contend with a decades-long slump in math scores — exacerbated by the pandemic — some are turning to departmentalizing even for very young students. In recent years, more elementary schools have opted to departmentalize some grade levels in an attempt to boost academic achievement. The share of fourth and fifth grade classrooms operating on this schedule has doubled since the year 2000, from 15 percent to 30 percent in 2021. Often, that means educators will specialize in one or two subjects at most.

Departmentalizing may be particularly important for math: Studies have shown that some early elementary school teachers experience anxiety about the subject and question their ability to teach it. Educators also say that the curriculum and standards for math and English in the early grades are changing rapidly in some districts and have become more complicated over time. In a departmentalized setup, it’s also far less likely that math instruction will get shortchanged by an educator who prefers spending time on other subjects.” 

“But while some schools swear by this model, the research on it is mixed.” (Hechinger Report)

As I read my thoughts shared years ago, I realized my thinking hasn’t changed. There are many factors such as your school size, number of students at a grade level, and experiences of your staff that would influence the decision to structure as departmentalized or self-contained. In either structure, the key to increasing teachers effectiveness — and generating increases in student success — is “teaching being a team sport.”

• Shared Accountability — All teammates must accept responsibility for student success in all content areas. If we departmentalize and I teach reading and social studies, the students’ math scores are mine. If we are self-contained and I teach all subjects, all the students at this grade level are mine. That’s the purpose of our PLC.
• Trust — Teammates must know each other and their work well enough to support each other with students and parents. If departmentalizing, my morning with a group of students needs to include getting them excited about the afternoon with my colleague. If self-contained, we need to know all the students in order to plan for all of them to be successful. Parents need to see our confidence in each other when they meet with us individually and collectively.
• Knowing Students means – If departmentalized I must dedicate time with my colleagues who observe and know my students from a different perspective. I need to uncover how students’ approaches to learning are similar and different as they move from reading to science. If my colleagues are accountable for student success in my self-contained classroom, they need to observe teaching and learning in my classroom.

In departmental or self-contained settings principals and instructional coaches should continually consider that they are dealing with a team more than an individual teacher. They should be meeting with the team when discussing student concerns. A principal should be asking questions of individual teachers that communicate his/her expectations that they are functioning as a team. If departmentalized, asking the social studies teacher how the writing students do for her matches the writing teacher’s assessment.  If self-contained, a meeting about reading scores should be held with the grade -level team strategizing rather than with individual teachers.

In both structures, teachers should be observing in each other’s classrooms to see student similarities and differences in each other’s classroom as well as within content areas. Since teaching teams will often have common planning times, you might arrange for teams to cover for each other so that learning activities can be observed. (Third grade teachers cover for 4th grade teachers to observe and then 4th covers 3rd.)

Regardless of structure, the deeper question is whether educators and those who lead them shift their thinking from “my students” to “our students.” That mindset doesn’t emerge by chance. It is shaped by the actions of principals and instructional coaches: meeting with teams rather than individuals, asking questions that surface shared responsibility, and supporting teachers in learning about students together. When leaders consistently reinforce that student success belongs to the team, it’s likely that any structure will be modified to best meet teachers’ abilities to meet student needs.

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