Co-Teaching Conflict Over a Lab Report Assessment
At a suburban middle school, Mr. Reyes teaches five sections of eighth-grade science. Two of those sections are co-taught with Ms. Okafor, the ESL teacher, who pushes in for the full 45-minute period. Each co-taught section has nine English learners - seven at WIDA Levels 2-3 and two at Level 4 - plus four students with IEPs. The end-of-unit assessment is a claim-evidence-reasoning lab report scored on a district science rubric. With no common planning time, Mr. Reyes has begun giving the ELs a fill-in-the-blank version of the lab report with the analysis paragraphs pre-written, saying they 'can't handle the writing' and that he has no time. Ms. Okafor learns this the day before the assessment. She has 30 minutes of push-in left in the unit. The principal has told Mr. Reyes that all students must take the same assessment and that scores will be compared across sections.
1. What is the central problem with the fill-in-the-blank version, and how would you frame that to Mr. Reyes without derailing the partnership?
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The central problem is not that the task is easier; it is that the modified version removes the very thing the standard assesses. Claim-evidence-reasoning requires students to select evidence and construct reasoning. When the analysis paragraphs are pre-written, the student completes a matching and copying exercise, and the resulting score says nothing about whether the student can do science. That matters for three reasons: the score is not valid for the stated standard, it will not prepare students for the state science assessment or for ninth-grade coursework, and it creates an equity problem, because a subgroup is systematically denied access to the grade-level task.
Framing matters. Mr. Reyes is not acting out of malice; he is acting out of a genuine time constraint and a belief that the alternative is failure. A productive opening is to agree with him on the goal - students producing defensible written reasoning - and then separate the goal from the scaffold. Language supports and a lowered cognitive demand are not the same thing. Scaffolds keep the reasoning intact: a graphic organizer with claim, evidence, and reasoning boxes; sentence frames that structure thinking rather than supply conclusions; a word bank of content terms; a model report from a different investigation that the class annotates. The pitch to him is one sentence: 'Same task, same rubric, more structure.' That is a change he can accept without feeling accused.
2. With 30 minutes of push-in remaining before the assessment, what do you actually do?
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Be surgical. Thirty minutes is enough for one modeled routine, not a redesign. First, co-construct with Mr. Reyes a one-page CER graphic organizer and a short set of frames tied to this investigation - frames like 'The data show ___ because ___' and 'This matters because ___.' Second, use the push-in to model the organizer with a short, familiar example, then have students annotate a sample report from a different lab and label each part. This builds the schema; verbal explanation alone will not. Third, agree on scoring: the rubric stays identical, but the team decides in advance how language errors are weighted and confirms the science rubric does not double-penalize grammar - content accuracy and evidence quality should drive the score.
For the two Level 4 students, the same organizer with fewer frames and an expectation of elaborated reasoning keeps the demand appropriate. For the four students with IEPs, check whether the organizer is already listed as an accommodation; if so, applying it to them too is straightforward. Finally, document what was provided and to whom, so that if scores differ across sections, the school can distinguish an instructional issue from a student deficit. The remaining question - how to prevent this from recurring - belongs to the next task, but do not let it consume the 30 minutes you have.
3. The root cause is the absence of shared planning time. What do you propose, and what do you do if the principal will not create it?
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Propose something specific and cheap rather than 'more collaboration.' Options with a real chance of adoption: a 20-minute weekly standing meeting before school or during a shared duty period; a shared digital planning document where Mr. Reyes posts the upcoming unit and Ms. Okafor returns language objectives and scaffolds within 24 hours; and using the push-in period itself for brief pre-brief and debrief conversations while students work, which is inefficient but better than nothing. The strongest argument to a principal is data-linked: co-taught sections with common planning show better outcomes, and the current arrangement is generating assessment modifications that will not survive state accountability review.
If the principal declines, escalate carefully to what you can control. Build a small bank of reusable scaffolds - CER organizers, frames, annotated models - that work across science units so each new unit costs minutes, not hours. Recruit a department ally who teaches the same course and is willing to share materials. Bring evidence to the next EL program review: the number of students receiving substituted tasks, and the risk exposure created. Simultaneously, protect the students in front of you. It is legitimate to say that until planning time exists, the co-taught model will not fully deliver, and to write that into the program documentation rather than absorb the failure silently.