Directors enthusiastically back four-day school week

By BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

WAYLAND ? WACO will attempt to become the second Iowa school district to be granted a waiver for a four-day school week.

Small, rural Iowa school districts must be innovative to set themselves apart from other similar school districts. WACO School Board members, who last night enthusiastically and unanimously approved application to the Iowa Department of Education for the waiver, feel this would be a move that would separate them from other districts.

Most board members feel that the waiver, if granted, could be a recruitment tool.

?I support it. I think it is wonderful, and I think this could be a marketing tool,? Todd Meyer, board member, said after last night?s vote.

?People will find this out and it may get some parents to send their kids to WACO because we are on the cutting edge,? added board President Tim Graber.

WACO?s application for the waiver is due by Nov. 1 and would be starting the 2013-14 school year. However, the state has been very stingy in granting the waivers. The only Iowa school district currently operating four days weekly is Pleasant Hill, which does it in the winter only. Also, if the waiver is granted, it does not mean the district has to go to a four-day week.

Tom Ferguson, high school language arts instructor, chaired the committee which wrote the application. ?We opened it (committee) up to the community and received a lot of good feedback on it. We didn?t go into great detail (in the application) because we didn?t want to go through a lot of wasted energy.?

Ferguson echoed board sentiments that often times risks are needed for survival. ?Everybody is afraid of change. Schools are still working under the factory system and the country is not a factory system any longer. Sometimes you have to take a calculated risk. We are at the point where we have to look at different things, but it?s a scary thing to look at change.?

The committee calculated that with a four-day week, student actually would be receiving more time in school. Minutes of instruction would increase from 7,156 minutes to 8,340 minutes (see sidebar accompanying this story). Some 72 hours or 17.5 days would be designed for enrichment, response to intervention (RTI) and jump start (at-risk) programs. Personal development for faculty also would increase from 86 to 100 hours per year.

Some of the enrichment programs include job shadowing, career/college exploration, dual-credit courses, teacher/community sponsored clubs/activities to engage students and increase relationships and cultural outings and field trips.

Ferguson was quick to point out that many students and instructors would be participating in educational programming during the non-school day of the week. ?I don?t want the community to think this is another day off for teachers because it isn?t,? he said.

Should the waiver be granted, it appears that the district would have school Monday-Thursday. ?Initially, we (the committee) thought about not having school Monday, but after more thinking, feel Friday is the best day,? Ferguson said.

He explained the reason for Friday is that Friday generally is a big event day and education may suffer because students are pre-occupied by events on Friday night. ?We also want to focus on enrichment activities. The idea of internships is big as is working with colleges. The whole idea is how we can better serve our students. The fifth day is not a day off, but a day for us to improve as educators,? Ferguson noted.

In talking with other districts (primarily in South Dakota and Colorado) with the four-day week, WACO learned that student and teacher attendance increased (therefore, saving money on substitute instructors) as did graduation rates.

In addition to a marketing tool for student enrollment, Ferguson said it also could be one for instructors. ?How do we get teachers here and to stay here? The four-day school week could be a real incentive. We have to become an innovative school. I think we have the opportunity to do that.?

School officials have ?played down? the cost savings angle, because the state has said cost savings cannot be a primary reason for desiring a four-day week. Secondly, the cost savings is difficult to figure because much of it would be ?soft? money. The savings they have been able to come up with is about $50,000 in transportation costs. If WACO went to a four-day week, it could eliminate 272 bus routes.

The application will be sent soon to the state. There is no timeline established on how quickly the state will respond.