Western administrators are determined to accommodate teachers in surrounding school districts who will be taking classes on the Hill this summer.

School closings due to snow during the winter will leave many of these teachers in their own classrooms during the first week of summer classes at Western, said Summer School Director Luther Hughes, also the associate vice president of Academic Affairs.

But most of the teachers will be accommodated.

“Teachers in the school system are a very important part of our summer school population,” Hughes said.

At a department head meeting yesterday, he said, department heads were asked to either push afternoon classes for the first week to about an hour later or work with individual teachers who are enrolled for classes during the first week to accommodate them. After the first week of classes, classes will resume at their normally scheduled time.

“We definitely are working to do some accommodations in the schedule,” Provost Barbara Burch said. “We’re going to work with every teacher that wants to be enrolled.”

Hughes said teachers with questions about the schedule should call the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences. He added that he is sending letters to superintendents and principals and will advertise in newspapers and on the radio so teachers know they can be accommodated.

Burch said the majority of the teachers will take classes at the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences.

Sam Evans, Associate Dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, said changes in the schedule for graduate courses were made three years ago when schools began to close later and open sooner.

“To the extent possible, we try to schedule a number of our graduate courses for evening and weekends,” Evans said.

He said most of the classes during the first week of summer are at night or on the weekend. He said there are a few in the late afternoon that will be altered to begin about an hour later.

Evans said these adjustments should accommodate everyone since there are very few daytime classes.

“I’m very optimistic that we are going to be able to make adjustments, where needed, to accommodate the students,” he said.

Reach Shawntaye Hopkins at [email protected].