Conference Days are Back at Stuyvesant

Conference days will be held on Mondays for teachers and administrative staff to engage in professional development starting on October 2. The conference day schedule includes periods that are four minutes shorter, with classes ending at 2:46 p.m. to make time for the meeting.

These days will allow teachers and assistant principals of different departments to meet for 40 minutes to discussing topics related to their content area, such as how to teach a specific unit, or how to get resources for a certain lab. The assistant principal will lead the conference, but the role can be transferred to teachers want to share something with rest of the department.

It is mandatory for the teachers to attend the conference days, and they won’t be getting additional hours or paid. “[Conference days] are part of the contract [...] which allows the school to administer it a maximum of twice a month,” Principal Eric Contreras said.

Teachers will also meet in smaller groups twice a month. “We are also keeping two Mondays for when teachers will come together in smaller pockets throughout the day for administrational and instructional sharing [throughout] departments,” Contreras said.

Former principal Stanley Teitel instituted conference days, as well. However, former principal Jie Zhang discontinued them.

Several teachers have expressed their approval of conference days to Contreras. “I am totally relieved and appreciative [about conference days]. It's been frustrating to have only a couple of non-school days when my whole department comes together,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said. “It's really valuable for us to set around the table together and talk as a department. Meeting in much smaller groups as we have done for the past few years, while there is some value in that, what it means is that it's much harder for everybody to hear from everybody else, work on things together, and agree on things together.”

Contreras hopes that bringing back conference days will push Stuyvesant forward. “We need to have conversations and listen to each other at all levels, but I do believe in modeling the work so if we want things to be innovative and collaborative at a student level, than we must do it at the adult level,” he said.