We Are Ashley Hall
Welcome to We Are Ashley Hall, a new podcast celebrating the voices, ideas, and experiences that define the Ashley Hall community.
Each episode features conversations with administrators, educators, and community members exploring what it means to take ownership of learning, ask bold questions, and grow as leaders and global citizens.
We Are Ashley Hall
Episode 5: The Gift of Time
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In this episode of We Are Ashley Hall, Associate Director of Communications and Institutional Storyteller Kassandra von Etzdorf sits down with Head of School Dr. Anne T. Weston '73 to discuss the "why" behind Ashley Hall's new daily schedule. From the research and collaboration that shaped the process to what these changes mean for students, this conversation offers an inside look at how the School is thoughtfully designing the student experience to help every girl thrive.
Featured in this Episode:
Dr. Anne T. Weston '73, Head of School
Kassandra von Etzdorf, Associate Director of Communications and Institutional Storyteller
Welcome to We Are Ashley Hall. I'm Cassandra Von Edstorp, the Associate Director for Communications, an institutional storyteller at Ashley Hall. In this episode, we're talking about a change families will notice this year: our transition to a rotating eight-day school schedule. Whenever a school makes a change like this, it's natural to ask why. Why change something that was already working? How are these decisions made, and most importantly, what does it mean for my daughter? Today I'm joined by our head of school, Dr. Ann Weston, to talk about the research, the collaboration, and the vision behind this work. We'll dig into why Ashley Hill chose to redesign the school day, what we learned from experts in girls' education and schools around the world, and why we believe this new rhythm of learning will help our students thrive. Thank you. I'm so glad to have an opportunity to sit down and chat with you. Awesome. Can't wait to talk about the schedule. Here we go. For many parents, first question is simply why? What sparked this conversation? What opportunities did you see that made a schedule of redesign worth pursuing?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm glad you asked that because I have been in education for almost 50 years and have never been involved in a school where we intentionally looked at how we use time and how we design our day. For Ashley Hall, in my mind, it's important that we think thoughtfully about everything we do here. And as we have looked thoughtfully at our curriculum and embraced our pursuit of becoming a fully authorized ID school, it made sense to look at are we making the best use of our times? Are we taking advantage of what we know about how girls learn what they need and weaving that into the structure of their day so that we are accomplishing our mission in the best way that we possibly can. That's right. We had pain points, and I think you know, we may have an opportunity to talk about those later. Um, when you're a small school and you want to do a lot of different things, and people cross over from divisions, it it creates pinch points that can be part of what drives a particular schedule to be to form in a particular way. In this case, we put all the pain points on the table. We took what we knew about how girls learn and we said, can we do better?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think something interesting that you've mentioned before was really putting the students at the center of this, that it's important, you know, as a school that we're not focusing on what's easiest for the adults or how we as grown-ups kind of function within a schedule or within the sp constructs of time, but really what's going to serve the students and their developmental stages and what supports them best.
SPEAKER_01Right. Schools can really define design, sorry, schedules from basically three perspectives. One is curriculum-based, the second is adult-based, and the third is student-based. Most schools default to the adult. Right. That's what's easiest for the adults on campus. And we were very intentional to say, what does it look like to create a student-centered schedule, not to just accomplish our academic goals, which certainly are important, but also to support and foster the health and well-being of our girls, which is another critical part of the work that we do here. For sure.
SPEAKER_00For sure. And that means building an intentional time for them to have time to absorb what they're learning, time to discuss what they're learning, time to seek extra help if they need it, but sort of on their own cadence and what makes most sense for each for each girl in each division.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Right. Again, when we talk about those what were some pain points that the students were saying was the particularly our older students who can be more articulate when they give feedback around how their days are experienced. Faculty gave feedback that we need more time to collaborate or more time that we could work with students on questions that they may have. For our lower school students, there were a lot of transitions in their day. And we realized when we looked at the data that our youngest students were making some of the most transitions. And we know that from an attention standpoint, every time you make a transition, you're having to refocus again. And that was a really more difficult thing for a younger student. So can we could we configure things so that those transitions were less?
SPEAKER_00So by transition you mean actually physically moving from one place on campus to another. Yes. Right. So the so the lower school schedule has shifted intentionally to make sure that there are fewer of there's less of that moving from one place to another and they can really focus on where they are in their classroom.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and also there were um the transitions were again driven by is the space open. So we might have a 20-minute sometime in a classroom, transition over to an art room, come back, have 20 more minutes. So you've broken up your literacy instruction, perhaps to go do one of the special connections classes, but could we do it differently?
SPEAKER_00Right. That's really interesting. Another piece that's interesting, which we haven't, we kind of sort of jumped over, is what is actually changing. So traditionally we have been on a five-day rotating day of the week schedule. And now what we're moving to is an eight-day rotating schedule, which means that we'll have days A through H, which can land on any day of the week, but sort of follow that cycle of eight days. And what was the sh like why make the shift to the eight-day schedule? Um and what are the benefits of that, I guess?
SPEAKER_01So one of the benefits of the eight-day schedule is um and particularly the way ours is constructed, is that it does rotate. The classes even within those day schedules are are um are rotating.
SPEAKER_00So that means that if you have math on Monday morning at 9 a.m., it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna have math every Monday every Monday morning at 9 a.m. It could be Tuesday at 9 a.m. And then that block will rotate down through the schedule throughout the eight days?
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. And so um for an upper school student and teacher, they're having different times when the teacher might be at her best and the student at her best, they have opportunities to come together instead of first period every day of the week for last period.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01For our athletes or or performers who have to have early dismissal, we're not cutting into the same period every time they're having to leave campus. Okay. Um again, for our student, for our younger students, when we talk about elementary, it it's probably not going to be that noticeable because they're not in these discrete time blocks like students begin to follow when they get in fifth grade on up to 12th.
SPEAKER_00Right. I had an interesting opportunity earlier this summer to sit in with um some of the faculty when they were on campus talking about the schedule changes and what they were excited about. And I think something that jumped out to me um also as a parent at the school was that this gives us an opportunity to kind of look at the year starting at the beginning. You can kind of plan out the whole year ahead of you. And they were talking about distributing testing across, uh making it a bit more even so that not all tests would land on the same day or even in the same week, and that this schedule kind of afforded them an opportunity to spread out some of that um responsibility that can fall on the students and give them the opportunity to plan a little bit better.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. I mean, I think that's one another very important thing by stretching things out to run across eight days. You do have more variability and when assessments show up. I think again, when we looked um at this schedule, we looked at where we can create rally points in this schedule that work across campus. And so oftentimes we might schedule something that we would love to include lower, middle, and upper school. That's a really important part of what happens at Ashley Hall is this opportunity for everyone across ages to come together, but we often couldn't get it scheduled because um we were because of the interruptions we went we were creating. But when we went into building this, we built in a time block that that that could happen periodically across the year. Cool.
SPEAKER_00Um back to that intent those intentional decisions. I think that is a really cool thing about Ashley Hall is and something I hear from students and teachers and parents about how fun it is and how joyful it is when the different generations get together and the different divisions all come together for those special times. That's really cool. So this obviously didn't happen overnight. Can you can you talk a little bit about what went into this decision and what actually happened with the process, who was kind of taking charge and how it came to be?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um our division directors had begun talking um, you know, two or three years ago as um we were noticing again, I go back to these pain points on campus where we had shared spaces, shared teachers, um, and that was driving our schedule, and we were having to make um compromises or sacrifices that we were hoping we could do better with. And so this notion of could we undertake a systematic study of how we use time? Um da Kote, our assistant head of School for Teaching and Learning, really um was the lead on that. And um we we looked at several consultants. Um we uh put out an RFP, if you will, for you know, finding the right people that would work with us across the year to get the input, to make observations, and then to help us craft our schedule. Um and so it was a very thoughtful process that began in this um winter and spring of um 24-25 to identify these consultants.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And the consultants we ended with, or we ended up working with are Dr. Shannon Schuster and Dr. Andrew Taylor. Can you talk a little bit about why we chose them or what their expertise is?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, Shannon um is actually does work in an all-girls school. She has a deep um history in all-girls education. Um, and Andrew is in IB schools, and so um they work together, and so it was really sort of a natural winning combination for us because those are um two of the fundamental pieces that are driving who Ashley Hall is and is becoming.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so they brought a lot of research to it, they brought a lot of expertise. One important thing that I've heard you talk about also is the student voice and how we really included our students in this process. Can you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_01Yes. And again, we um we did survey students. Uh the best feedback we get are from the older students, as I said, who are more articulate about what their day is like. Right. Asking kindergartners about their schedule might might go over their head a little bit. Yes. But um part of Shannon and Andrew's time on campus was spent in classrooms, in informal meetings with students, and they're perceptive. So they could pick up um, you know, things that looked like these were joy-generating, or they could look where students were stressful. Um and so that feedback was very helpful to us, um, particularly again the the older students reflecting on um things that they were missing in the schedule that we know are really important for girls' well-being and growth, and that is time to reflect. You can't just be in class and get the information. If you don't have time to process it, it's lost. Right. So having that time between classes for um for reflection, having the opportunity to again um be in community, that's such an important part for girls, some downtime in community. Right. Um, and again, opportunities to meet with their faculty, and and faculty were also commenting their own frustration of not being available for their students. So, could we figure out a way to make the schedule work better so that faculty also had more common time together?
SPEAKER_00That's really great. Interesting. There was something I read from the National Center on Education and the Economy, and that was a note that while time alone doesn't improve learning, how schools organize and use time is a critical element of school improvement, that global high-performing systems rethink schedules to better support learning, agency, and well-being. And that tied back to something that I've heard you say, which was that this schedule work was actually really mission-aligned and mission-driven, and something that a school schedule, which I never thought of this, but a school schedule could actually speak to what matters, what gets protected, how students experience school. And if you can talk just about how that sort of aligned in your brain as you were going through this process with our Ashley Hall School mission.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, when you are designing your school, you have certain resources you use. And the one fine one of the finite resources is time. And um, I think again uh how one spends their time reflects one's values. And so when you do schedule work, it gives you the opportunity to be more objective and to say, are we reflecting what we value in the way we're we're spending our time? And um I think again, the Ashley Hall mission ha has an academic piece to it, and it also has a very important part around well-being. And so was our schedule um supporting our girls in the very best way that we could. And we said no, that we could do better.
SPEAKER_00Right. What a cool position to be in to actually have that ability to consider how we're spending our days and sort of what it's a position, obviously, as an independent school, kind of a unique position for us to be in. And what, you know, you said, which I just think is worth repeating, is that this was the first time that you'd ever seen students at the center of schedule work, which is such a cool thing.
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean, and it it's it's this kind of thing where you say, well, of course they are. Right. But they're not when at the end of the day you're doing what's easiest for adults often, you know, whether it's the families that are bringing students here or more importantly, the adult employees, like um, and to to start with the students in mind, which is why we exist, right? You're right, is a is a beautiful thing. Um and again, how big an impact will this be? I think I think the students will be so well adjusted really quickly. I think they're gonna like it. I think they're gonna like the pace of the day. Again, the older students are gonna recognize that that pace is is very different. It gives opportunities when I think about the middle school for the insertion of um some of the uh cross-curricular work that we want to do as part of our um middle years program authorization. And and so there are those carve-out times that allow them to do some really cool age appropriate projects, research, design thinking. I think um, and again, it's intentionally built into the schedule, not okay, we're gonna do boat building, what are we gonna give up? Because that the only time we can do that is on Friday afternoon, right? For example. Like now we've been able to really plan for it. These are the things that are important for each grade level for our students to be able to do, and now we have a schedule that does it. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Great. Um, research from organizations like the International Coalition of Girls Schools, which we love to talk about. We love ICGS. Um, that tells us that girls thrive in environments that intentionally foster confidence, belonging, and student voice. As our team thought about redesigning the schedule, how did those insights shape the decision made? Like how how are we building confidence through our schedule?
SPEAKER_01Again, I think our girls build confidence through a couple of different ways. One is strong relationships with really skilled adults who are passionate about what they do and who care about them. Um, the opportunity to have um classes that are appropriate length of time so that you can um do some hands-on individual type of work that builds confidence, that it's not a lecture. You're not building confidence in a lecture. You're gonna build confidence around a hardness table and or in a lab situation. That's where you're gonna build your confidence. And so um again, uh in the lower grades, can we build confidence because we're building stronger readers, because their reading instruction is not broken up by uh another connection class that they might go to. So I think confidence comes in the academic, you know, feeling good about what your academic prowess and skills are, but also confidence in um, you know, this person is gonna allow me to be successful or I can fail at one thing and they'll pick me up and show me how to get started again. I think. I think it's it's interesting too.
SPEAKER_00It's like this this piece of students building agency. And I think what's cool for the really sort of comes into play in middle and upper school, but that it's that what I need time, we're calling it win time in the schedule, where students can seek out extra help from their teachers, can sort of decide what it is they need to be better students or to be have more rest or be more adjusted or be more in community or whatever it is, which I think is really an interesting piece.
SPEAKER_01That is a very important addition that comes in the schedule is that um there's an opportunity for students to seek out what it is they actually need. Is it extra help? Do they need to just, you know, stretch out on the turf and just look at the clouds? Do they do they want to go have an appointment with a uh a teacher to talk about an idea they have or society they want to start, or can a society meet at that time? You know, the group of like-minded people want to pursue something together and study it. Um, I do think uh one of the greatest gifts, again, that we give students is their ability to self-regulate and to um we give them a structure of a school day, but there are options within that school day, and they're gonna learn how to take advantage of those options in the way the best serve them.
SPEAKER_00Which also prepares them for life beyond Ashley Hall because once you get to college, university, there's a lot more options. A lot more.
SPEAKER_01Well, they are a lot more for you. It's interesting. We have our um newest alums always come back and speak to our upper school students after they've finished their first semester. And one of the things that they talk about is you have to make a lot of decisions about how you're gonna use your time wisely once you're in college. And so how great is it that we can give them even more opportunity to practice using their time wisely before they get into that environment where they don't have as many adults necessarily that they're connected with that are hands-on.
SPEAKER_00Right. That's that independence, competence, ability to be their own advocates and decide how they spend their time. I think that's really cool. Great prep for college and life beyond. Um, I mean, realistically, if I'm a parent of a fifth or a tenth grader, what are we actually experiencing differently? Like, are we there's a lot of talk about less rushing, less time. Hopefully that's kind of what we're seeing. Or what what do you think is like the big change that parents are noticing?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's the question I've been asking myself because we want parents to feel prepared. And then I ask myself, well, what do they need to be prepared? For how tuned in have they been? Our parents, even to a schedule. Right. You know, they take feedback from their child. My hope is that what they'll hear is the feedback from their child that is positive, that reflects the things that we are valuing in this schedule. Like, this is what I did in the wind time today. This is what my design thinking class looks like. Right. Wow, I could really like exhale between these two classes in upper school, and I didn't have to run from the Elizabeth House to the Warren Street house. Um, so that's that's what I hope. Um, you know, I was a parent. Okay, sometimes we had to schedule a dentist appointment. I always wanted to try to do that when my child didn't have a class. So it may be just a tad bit trickier to say, okay, Monday's schedule this week wasn't like Monday's schedule last week. Right. But we're producing all of the information at the beginning of school so that any parent could look at, for example, I'm gonna look at, you know, December the fourth, and we'll know exactly what's happening in that day for uh for an older child, like when they're free, when they're not free, and so on. Right.
SPEAKER_00All of those resources are available in our blog posts, the Gifted Time, that A through H full academic calendar is available. We have our academic calendar for the 26, 27 school year, um, and a lot more information on some of these topics that we've covered, like win time, discovery period, things like that. Um what do you think as you walk campus this year and you see the schedule kind of come to life, what do you think you're gonna see that shows the impact of these changes?
SPEAKER_01That's such a great question because you know, my first thought was students who just are carrying their shoulders a little bit lower because they're a little more relaxed. Now I say that, but I I also don't feel like I walk campus and say, wow, this is really a stressed place, because I and I think that's one of the beauties of of Ashley Hall. Learning can be fun and school can be fun. Um, I'm hoping that I'll um that I'll hear feedback from like, wow, it was so easy. I was able to go get that question answered that I needed, or, you know, I feel so much better. It's so much easier for me to be on the tennis team this year because I'm not missing calculus every time we go play a match. I mean, I feel like I'm gonna hear it more in informal conversations. I think it may be interesting for us to to do some surveying, you know, once we get through a semester of it and just, you know, how how is it going? Um, I I also expect to hear, you know, like, you know, like I don't know, like there will be something that's different that will throw somebody off.
SPEAKER_00There's always an adjustment period, right? There's gonna be bumps, new routines take practice. So every everyone's learning. But yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's I think it's interesting. I don't know if it's as big of a change as everyone is expecting, or like you said earlier, if how tuned in were you really to the schedules beforehand, or is it just now that we're talking about it that it becomes more of an issue?
SPEAKER_01But yeah. Yeah, I mean, I I don't this is not, I mean, this is a change. Um we aren't we're trying to be again more intentional about the way we use time. Um we don't believe good educators don't believe in a model that just says there are this many hours in a class and and that's the gold standard. Right. Because it we know it's how you use that those hours and and what's happening in that time. And so where we might look at something from last year to this year, and across the year there's 30 minutes less in this class, I can guarantee you that teacher has been way more thoughtful about how they're using the time that they do have. And at the end of the day, there's more meaningful time, even though the clock time might look different. You know, it's right, it's it's the beauty of doing this, even if we had not changed the schedule at all, would have been the process of having looked at how are we using time and making sure we're using time in a way that best serves girls at whatever stage of development they're in.
SPEAKER_00It's the most important part, right? Our girls. Thank you so much for taking the time. Ha ha. Uh, it's been fun chatting with you and um looking forward to kicking off the next school year. Me too. Awesome. Wait to see everybody back. Great. Thanks, Dr. Rustin. Thank you.