WACO takes its innovative calendar to the people

By BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

SWEDESBURG ? Something old, something new.

WACO?s 4 +1 innovative calendar honchos toured the district Thursday, meeting with patrons in Swedesburg, Olds, Crawfordsville and Wayland to discuss the district?s four-day innovative school calendar, which begins with the 2013-14 school year.

Superintendent of Schools Pat Coen, calendar committee chairman Tom Ferguson and vice-chair Tina Whalen conducted two town meetings in each of the communities.

The team briefed patrons on preliminary plans for the calendar and entertained questions and feedback from residents.

?We probably won?t have an answer at this point on some of the things,? warned Ferguson before five patrons at the Swedesburg meeting at the community hall.

Ferguson said the impetus for the calendar was the desire to better serve students. ?We needed to change the educational system to better serve students and families,? he remarked.

A secondary-language arts instructor and coach, Ferguson said he has researched the four-day school week for nearly a half decade. ?The four-day week has been around for 40 years. I saw a lot of potential in it and took it to a former superintendent a few years ago. He (the then-superintendent) said it looked great but the state would never approve it.?

Although temporarily stopped, Ferguson kept studying it and when the need for budget cuts surfaced last year in the WACO District, Ferguson again brought the idea to the table.

?We want WACO to remain. During the cuts, I asked about building something instead of cutting. It?s not about finances, but improving education. I think doing this will keep students here and attract more students,? Ferguson said.

Some of the new information surfacing at the meeting was the educational programming planned at the elementary school.

Whalen said some of the activities were:

? Extended technology, such as building web pages and creating videos;

? Science, technology, engineering and manufacturing (STEM) programs, such as Lego engineering;

? Junior physics;

? Creative reading and writing;

? Living actively programming with examples including hunter safety classes, CPR training, studying golf and bowling and babysitting classes.

Additional courses will be added, Whalen said, as planning is still in the elementary stages.

?Students will enroll in three classes,? Whalen said, ?and spend an hour in each class on Fridays.?

However, students who need remedial work will only be able to enroll in one class, school officials added.

?Basically, the Friday courses at the elementary school will be an extension of what they are learning the other four days of the week,? Whalen noted.

During the first semester, WACO will not have school on six Fridays. Some of the remaining Fridays will be used for professional development, which was formerly scheduled during the school day, necessitating early dismissals or late starts.

The Friday courses will be from 8:30-11:30 a.m.

Swedesburg resident Jerry Lindeen brought up the issue of child care on Fridays. ?My concern is that every child has access to these classes,? Lindeen said. ?A lot of times, nobody speaks for the little children, so I am speaking for them. Child care should be your top priority.?

Coen told Lindeen that every WACO student will have access to bus transportation on Fridays, adding that the district is looking at partnering with an individual or individuals to start a pre-school and after-school child-care service as well as child care on Fridays.

Whalen supported the plan for child care. ?Child care and decisions children make away from school are driving forces for me in education. I care about what my students are doing when they are not in school.?

Fridays at the junior high and high school will include dual-credit (high school and college credit) courses, internships and job shadowing in addition to remedial learning, Ferguson commented.

?Our job is to improve the quality of lives,? he continued. ?This is about kids, we could care less if we save money.?

Most of the other material discussed has been previously reported in The News. Although classes at the junior and senior high school will be reduced from five to four days a week, Ferguson pointed out that student instruction time will actually increase from 212 minutes per class per week to 240 minutes per class per week. The school day will be from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Classes at the elementary school will run from 8:10 a.m. to 3:50 p.m. The difference in school day length is because the state requires more minutes of classtime in junior and senior high schools than elementary schools.

A Swedesburg resident asked whether teacher and student attendance would be compulsory on Fridays. School officials said Friday attendance would be required of teachers, according to the master contract, but not for students unless they needed remedial work or were failing classes.

Some committee members visited the Pleasantville School District Wednesday, the only Iowa district currently having the four-day week. However, Pleasantville only has the four-day week during the winter.

Pleasantville will be in its third year of the innovative calendar this school year, and Ferguson said district officials told him that it has been highly successful.

?They said they started it to save money but soon realized that education improved,? Ferguson explained. ?They have seen it as a tremendous benefit to instruction.?

WACO School personnel also reiterated their support for the calendar.

?I believe we can do this, and I think we have some very good ideas,? summed up Whalen.