Roving teachers are temporary solutions for schools that are either financially limited or can not provide enough classrooms for every teacher. CHS has a few “roving teachers”, but is the only school in the CUSD that has them. Teachers in charge of these classes do have permanent classrooms, but are also expected to move from classroom to classroom for one or more of their periods.
An example of a “roving teacher” is Brynn Sanderlin, a math teacher. She starts out with second and third period in room 405, and then has a preparation period in place of a fourth period. This schedule provides sufficient time for Sanderlin to transfer her belongings to 406 for the rest of her classes. CHS tries to group roving teachers’ classrooms as close as possible to their regular room. With a closer classroom, they will not have much difficulty moving their teaching materials too far a distance. However, it is still an inconvenience for teachers because they have certain teaching materials in their most frequently used classroom, and then have to transfer them to another room before teaching their roving class. If teachers do not have a preparation period, in between the time they have to move in between classes, they will have the same amount of time as students to gather their belongings and go to their other classroom. At the end of their roving class, teachers will have to restore the room to the condition they found it in.
“It’s not something that we want to do. We can either make our school smaller, or get rid of students, or build more classrooms,” Principal O’Connor said. Roving Teachers have negative impacts on teachers’ teaching methods, and CHS is already trying to reduce the amount of teachers that have roving classes, by adding more classrooms, although it will not solve the problem.
“We are building a new student center, but it won’t be ready until 2021,” O’Connor said.
These teachers have been working hard to balance the normal duties of a teacher and “roving,” and hopefully will soon revert to their past routines. For the time being, CHS’s roving teachers will have to continue their daily schedule with moving from room to room.