Four-day school week at Peetz discussed

Members of the community met Thursday night to discuss a potential four-day school week for Peetz School.

The idea was brought up by school officials for a four-day school week began as a way to reduce operating costs. After initial research, the school district began to weigh the pros and cons.

Superintendent Mark Collard gave a PowerPoint presentation that focused mainly on the benefits of going to a four-day school week.

He said in the presentation that recruitment and retention of qualified and experienced staff will improve. He added that teachers looking into working for a school will find it more appealing to have the four-day schedule.

Collard also said there was potential for an increase in student enrollment.

"The four-day week may appeal appeal to outside families and bring up the numbers of enrollment," he said.

A more consistent school calender was also discussed in the presentation. Collard said a four-day school week may reduce student and teacher absences, which in turn will reduce substitute teacher costs.

The superintendent said the shortened week allows additional time for teacher collaboration. The four-day week would leave that extra day to focus planning with out having to have a teacher in service.

The four-day week would lengthen the school day and leave more time for innovative activities and lessons, Collard said. The extra time added to the day will allow for continued intervention services without having students have to choose to miss out on electives, he added.

Collard also said the four-day school week would allow for more efficient use of class time.

According to Collard, one of the challenges other schools who switched to a four-day school week had was adjusting lesson plans. Once they did, the schools said they were more focused on what needed to be done, he said.

Peetz has a five-day school week with classes from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The proposed change would change that schedule to a four-day week with classes from 7 a.m. to 3:50 p.m. every day.

The school offered a survey online prior to the open forum, which offered people to talk about concerns about the switch.

One question asked was which day would not be included in the four-day school week, Friday or Monday. According to the PowerPoint, Friday would be the more efficient day off to help maximize student contact hours. However, the survey said 61 percent of the people would rather have Monday off.

One community member that came to Thursday's forum voiced a concern about medical and other appointments, as many offices are closed Friday or leave early that day. That would cause them to have to take the child during a school day or leave early for the appointment.

If a holiday is on a Monday or if there is a snow day, Collard said the days could be flexible, always resulting in a four-day week. He also said the extra day could be used to help make up snow days.

Collard said the fifth day would be used for monthly inservice, meetings and collaborations. Teachers would also have their planning periods in a regular school day.

The superintendent encouraged those at the meeting to look further into the issue.

"I want the people to look into this and see what they think," he said. "I encourage you to use the links on the page, talk to the board members and reach out to others who already have a four-day schedule in place."

Collard will present the proposed calendars, for both four and five-day weeks, to the school board in March.

He said he will "leave the decision to the school board. The bottom line is that we want to see our kids succeed."