Cooper is joining 2nd Street and other DC schools in having early dismissal every Wednesday at 2:00 pm for all students. Read more about why we are making this change.
The Cooper Campus daily schedule is 8:00 am to 3:15 pm for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. This year, we will have a slightly earlier dismissal every Wednesday at 2:00 pm. Here are related details:
- School will start at 8:00 am Monday through Friday.
- Wednesday dismissal at 2:00 pm means that Tutorial (period afterschool when students can visit any teacher to get extra help, take a quiz, etc.) will run from 2:00 to 2:30 pm.
- The Latin bus will leave Cooper at 2:30 pm.
- Sports practices at both campuses will begin at 2:45 and end by 3:45 (grades 6-8) or begin at 3:45 and end at 5:45 for Upper School students.
- MAGIS will run until 6:00 pm on Wednesdays, as other days during the week.
Why this change?
There are two primary reasons for this adjustment – making the most of professional development, and faculty sustainability.
Dynamic Professional Development
Each week, our faculty participates in some form of professional development. Traditionally, this has been on Tuesday afternoons with a mix of all-faculty meetings, small team gatherings, etc. We will shift these activities to three of the four Wednesdays each month, giving us more time to work together and have a dynamic mix of professional development activities without the time constraint of beginning meetings at 4:00 pm. With our relatively younger faculty, this development time is especially important.
Faculty Sustainability
As a school, we demand a great deal of our faculty, especially those who work directly with your children all day, every day. This is “holy work,” we often say, because it is both meaningful and challenging with tremendous rewards. We aim for our teachers to bring their full selves, and their BEST selves to campus each day. One strategy for achieving this is to offer some time off once a month, when teachers can pursue an activity, visit their doctor, or manage any of the various things that can be difficult to achieve when one is in-person at work every day. Of course, this is in addition to the regular personal time off that we offer to our faculty, but we believe it offers a bit more flexibility for them.
Both for reasons of sustainability and professional development, we believe that this will make our faculty able to bring their best to your children every day.
To learn more about our schedule, please check out this Explainer.
