Jones County School District holds community meeting on four-day school week

The Jones County School Board held a special community board meeting on Monday, February 2, at the mini gym for the purpose of discussing a four-day school week and sharing the community survey results on this topic. There was a very large turnout.

Deb O’Reilly, Superintendent and High School Principal, introduced the school board members. The meeting was called to order and the Pledge of Allegiance was cited. Roll call was made, and no conflict of interest waivers were presented. The agenda was approved.

The purpose of the survey was to explore the pros and cons of a four-day week. The survey results were shared on a slide presentation. It showed who participated, benefits and concerns, and key takeaways, as well as test score comparisons and a proposed four-day school calendar.

The parent survey results were shown first. There were 68 responses. The biggest benefit parents felt a shorter week would have would be that the students would have more time for work, job shadowing, or volunteering. Their largest concern was childcare challenges for the family.

The staff survey had 21 responses. The biggest benefit staff felt were a tie between better staff morale and retention and teacher recruitment and retention. The big concern was the impact on student achievement.

The community survey results had 26 responses. The most important thing to community members were student learning and academic outcomes. The community felt that a shorter week would bring more student employment and work opportunities. The biggest concern was reduced instruction time.

Ultimately, there was not a clear choice on whether the community as a whole is for or against a four-day school week. Parents were mostly supportive, staff were generally favorable and the genera community results were very mixed. Across the board, student learning was the highest priority.

At this time, the state assessment scores were shown for the last few years. Jones County scores were compared to schools in the area with mostly four-day school years, and seemed to do above average for the most part, but not by much. Also shown on the chart were attendance, minority status, and poverty status. The attendance of students of Jones County fell on the slightly lower side of average one year (COVID), but was fairly average in most recent years. The chart showed that areas with high levels of poverty and minority students tend to perform poorly. Jones County’s minority status was considered neither high nor low, but the poverty status was considered high.

The board then showed what a four-day school year would look like. There would about 17 extra minutes a day compared to the current system. Rather than starting at 8:17 a.m., school would start at 8:10 a.m. School would end at 3:45 p.m. rather than 3:35 p.m. There would be 407 minutes of instructional time for grades 6-12 compared to the 398 minutes currently in place. Elementary students were see 380 instructional minutes rather than 363 minutes. The school year would start a day earlier, and end about five days later. Fridays were looking to be the day taken off, but would still be used as enrichment days that included tutoring or study groups. “Our responsibility is to focus on serving all children.”

The board then moved to the recognition of guests and the open forum portion of the meeting. Megan Tatum, board President, acknowledged policy BDDH and reviewed exceptions. She clarified that this meeting was not intended to be a debate. The board also made a disclaimer that they would be unlikely to have all of the answers due to a lack of data.

Maria Venard asked many questions about finances and lunch and teacher contracts. Lunch contracts would have to be changed and teacher contracts would need to be negotiated. The extra day off is not expected to save a noticeable amount of money. She also inquired if Jones County would switch to block schedules like many other schools have done after the switch. This seemed unlikely since there is only 17 extra minutes added to the day. Lastly, she asked how snow days would be factored into the proposed calendar. This was largely dependent on the hour requirements the school has to meet, but they would likely use the tail-end enrichment days to make up for snow days.

Students Mason Martinez and Weston Tatum were concerned about lunch specials being affected, some subjects being longer than others, and whether more school supplies would be needed. Lunch would be longer by about five minutes, subject lengths should be about the same for each, and the change would probably not affect school supplies.

Chris Martinez asked if attendance to those Friday enrichment days would become a requirement for students who are performing poorly. This could certainly be an option. There is no time set aside for enrichment in the current system. It was mentioned by Abby Martinez that these enrichment days in the four-day calendar could make extra time for students with special needs.

Kristen Aske asked how the students are making up for an entire day of learning with 14 less instructional days and only 17 extra minutes a day. The response to this was that there would need to be some due diligence, on the instructor’s part, to do appropriate curricular mapping and make sure that the content standards are met. A teacher commented that this could be done by using the same assignment across multiple subjects. Aske also asked why they are called enrichment days and whether teachers will get those days off. The board was unsure what those days would look like for teachers. It might be a half-day for teachers, but this would have to be discussed. Someone suggested only taking every other Friday off and only adding an extra 8 minutes to the day.

Donna Fischer questioned the driving force behind considering a four-day school week, to which the board replied that this was something that has been brought to the board a few times over the years. The board decided to take action and dig into the subject.

Justine Rivard shared that her last few years of school were four-day weeks and that her child was also used to four-day school weeks. At her school, they had still served lunch on the day off and childcare was taken care of with a partnership with YMCA. She said it was strange at first, but was soon easy to get used to.

There were some questions about Coyote Club and whether it would still be available on Fridays. The board clarified that Coyote Club availability is dependent on the 21st Century Grant and is not guaranteed each year. The bus that takes kids to Coyote Club is also covered under the grant, so transportation on Fridays may also be dependant on that. Childcare was a common concern among parents in the room.

Ashley Geigle, Murdo Economic Development Director, commented on the concerns for childcare. She stated that the Murdo Development Corp is working on getting a daycare open again in March and they are working with businesses to help with the childcare efforts.

So where does the board go from here? This topic will be on the agenda for the next regular board meeting on Monday, February 9 at 6:00 p.m. It was asked if they will put out another survey after hearing the concerns of the community. A short one may be able to be sent out, but it would be a lot simpler than the previous ones. The board agreed it would help them to come to a decision on Monday.

Attendees were thanked for coming, and the meeting was adjourned.