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Upon first examination, differentiated staffing is a difficult topic to understand.The idea behind the concept is to reduce the number of teachers and staff members by providing employees to specialize in the specific tasks that are needed in order to perform the duties of the job.Differentiated staffing can be an effective means of reducing the workload and personnel costs in a large campus or district.In these settings, the number of employees can be reduced by providing specialized staff members to do the tasks of assigned to others.One example is the duties of the educational diagnostician.Many campuses have one or more diagnosticians assigned to their individual campuses.Some of these positions could be reduced by requiring diagnostician to serve multiple campuses.The number of librarians and counselors could be cut as well by requiring administrators, librarians, and counselors to serve multiple campuses.The duties of these positions could be divided up among the teaching staff as well in order to reduce the number of administrators, counselors, and librarians. These kinds of cuts are not popular because they reduce in the personalization that is needed in order to make connections with students.They also increase the workload of individual teachers and staff members

From Rob Our district and high school campus uses differentiated staffing when feasible. More times than not it is a specific staff member for specific needs. However, sometimes our needs can best be met by manipulating job responsibilities as such that employees with special skills are given time to fulfill specific responsibilities. Our professional staff breakdown is 195 teachers, and 28 instructional aides. The bulk of our differentiation is in these two categories. District wide, our professional staff for instruction constitutes 58% of our employment. Our high school (Huffman-Hargrave) is unique in that it is the only 3A school in Harris County (amidst all the super 5A’s in the Houston area). I personally love it but it does not come without challenges. Many times they include sharing staff members with our middle school. There is a careful balance that has to be weighed and many times each and every class slot is important. Additionally, unlike most or possibly all districts, we actually staff our DAEP. We have teachers coming and going left and right to fulfill direct instruction obligations over there. All this may initially lend itself to just the opposite of differentiation. But in a sense that is just what it is. Although it may ultimately be the same staff member, they actually take off their hats on certain days, and take on a completely different role on others. We utilize true differentiation in special education quite regularly through the use of inclusion aids and co-teach models. I am happy to say that we have neither a full time staffed content mastery, nor a full time staffed AB unit. We have the ability to staff them at the drop of a hat, but choose to serve our students in the regular classroom whenever possible. It is in this sense that we truly mainstream our students. Additionally, we differentiate through the use of part time teacher/part time counseling support. Also part time teacher/part time intervention coordinator. Both play major roles in testing and dropout prevention. Again, because of the size of our district, this type of differentiation best serves our students needs. From time to time I drive by chemical plants in our area and marvel at all the pipes, valves, gauges, flares and wonder if there is any one person out there who knows how it all works (and could operate it). I believe the answer to that is a resounding no. However, there are experts in every field, and supervisors over different areas that make all the pieces of the puzzle come together. The same is true in schools. I believe it truly is about putting all the right people in all the right seats on the bus.

From Scott

I learned from the lecture that the concept of differentiated staffing takes lots of communication and collaboration from all stakeholders. In an article from the American Association of School Administrators, a comparison is made between sufficient training in pedagogical methods and recognizing the expertise that an individual may have in a particular subject area. We have more flexibility in Career and Technology subject areas due to the specialized training required of the teachers and certification opportunities for students. Diversifying the duties of classroom teachers to meet campus and district goals is an innovative concept, and in FWISD, we will review a few areas of specific improvement. Because policy from the state level does not give specific time limit requirements, some school programs have integrated disciplines into one classroom. The classic example is infusing social studies with language arts instruction. Two other content areas are reading and writing. These subjects lend themselves very well to interdisciplinary units, and with a dually certified teacher who meets all the TEKS, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, in their classroom; two sections of courses could easily be merged into one. These types of structures to school context and organization could lead to a dramatic reduction in costs. However, one may argue that the rigor required and the limited resource of time is too constraining to allow this type of change in a school. One of the goals of our district is to provide for effective instruction, and cross-curricular studies have been proven to provide for increased achievement.