Teachers traditionally have little time to talk to each other, share ideas about what works in their classrooms or devise strategies to help specific students.

But starting next fall, all Boulder Valley schools will be required to provide about an hour a week for their teachers to collaborate as a professional learning community.

"If everybody can offer an opinion or advice, we're more likely to solve the challenges that we have," said Ellen Miller-Brown, the Boulder Valley School District's chief academic officer. "We're excited about it. It could be critical for closing the achievement gap."

Teachers are expected to use the time to "gather evidence of student learning, discuss strategies to improve student learning, implement those ideas, analyze the effectiveness of the strategies and apply new knowledge in an improvement cycle."

Boulder Valley schools have until the end of April to submit formal plans to the school district on how they'll schedule at least 55 minutes of teacher collaboration time once a week.

Miller-Brown said about half the schools plan to have students start late or get out of school early, while the other half are incorporating the time outside the regular school day. To make it work, some schools are adding a few minutes to the instructional day, and others are shortening passing periods.

"Every community had different things that were important to them," she said. "This first year, it was really challenging for some schools to find time."

Elementary schools with a high percentage of low-income students also have the option to use $10,000 from the school district to provide child care for a late-start or early-release day.

While teachers already have time in the school day to plan lessons or grade papers, schools generally don't offer common planning times, district officials said. Along with classroom teachers, literacy teachers and other specialists will be included.

Six Boulder Valley schools have piloted collaborative learning time in the last couple of years.

At Louisville's Monarch High School, which has used a late-start model since it opened, Principal Jerry Anderson said teachers this year began using the extra 50 minutes on Wednesday mornings for collaborative planning time.

"Teachers can look at data and talk about instruction," she said.

As an example, she said, social studies and language arts teachers recently met to talk about standardizing writing instruction across the curriculum.

Boulder's Manhattan Middle School was the first Boulder Valley school to try a common collaboration time, starting 10 years ago. Like Monarch, the school uses a Wednesday late-start day.

"Manhattan teachers have both the time to learn about new research in education and they have the time to work with other teachers to fully implement this information," said Manhattan Principal Robbyn Fernandez.

She said initiatives teachers have undertaken include standards-based instruction and grading, diversity and equity issues and best practices in gifted education.

"Teachers need to meet with each other for a concentrated period of time and meet consistently in order for real growth to happen," she said.