Sean C. Morgan
A four-day school week in Sweet Home schools is a possibility for next school year.
Supt. Don Schrader told the District 55 School Board Monday that he would begin gathering information about the idea for the November School Board meeting.
The concept was raised by former Supt. Larry Horton before he retired as part of a list of ideas to save money, and Schrader asked the board last month whether it was interested. The board told him it was.
The concept could save $250,000 to $300,000 annually, Schrader said. “What I’m trying to do is stay out of the classroom.”
Schrader couched his presentation in terms of making budget decisions that promote sustainability while enhancing student success.
Among the underlying tenets, Schrader said that all students can learn and must be given an equal opportunity to experience success, while budget reductions must have little or no impact on student learning. Class sizes in primary grades should be reasonable, without impeding learning. Budget reductions should be prioritized with areas least impacting instruction to be considered first.
“Budget reductions impact the lives of many people in this community,” Schrader said. “The district should do everything possible to lessen this impact, but not at the expense of students. All students have a right to be educated and resources must be freed up to provide a high quality education.”
To best meet the needs of the students and improve academic achievement during a time of financial instability, Schrader suggested that a four-day school week may help.
“Many school districts in Oregon and across the country have turned to a four-day school week to improve student achievement while making significant reductions in the budget,” Schrader said. Students attend four slightly longer days rather than five, and most districts have determined that a Monday to Thursday schedule works best.
With holidays falling on Mondays on a four-day week that runs Tuesday to Friday, students have tended to be absent the Friday beforehand, he said, and Friday night athletics are less distracting to students.
This year, Oregon has 58 districts on a four-day week, with Harrisburg and Coos Bay switching this year, Schrader said. Among those districts was Glide, where he was superintendent before moving to Sweet Home. Glide has been on a four-day week since 2001.
As a parent, he opposed the four-day week, he said. When the Glide School Board wanted to return to a five-day week, the community recalled four out of five board members. He was among the parents who supported returning to a five-day week. He lacked information about it and worked in Sutherlin so it presented a challenge to his schedule. He changed his mind about it after working with the four-day week in Glide.
“Student success is our ultimate goal,” Schrader said. “To meet our goal we need to find time for professional development, PLC collaboration, teacher planning, curriculum articulation, data collection and analysis, best practice research and other instructional training.”
Among benefits, he lists financial savings, increased staff development opportunities, more time for teacher planning, increased attendance, improved behavior, improved student achievement, reduction in substitutes needed, more intervention time, less instruction time missed due to athletic travel and families can get a start on three-day weekends without missing school.
Among drawbacks, he listed longer school days although they are mitigated by no school on Friday, a reduction in wages for some personnel, childcare costs for some families and less afterschool time to meet with staff.
In Glide, the high school schedule was 7:50 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. The middle school schedule was 7:55 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and the elementary schedule was 8 a.m. to 3:25 p.m.
“The schedule doesn’t affect student achievement,” Schrader said. “Effective teachers do.”
In Harrisburg, the School Board’s goals were to preserve the integrity of the district’s academic, athletic and technology programs, Schrader said.
It achieves this by saving money and preserving those programs. The board also wanted to protect student seat time and safeguard the district’s financial resources, while being able to conduct good-faith collective bargaining, something that is difficult without something to offer.
The process for a potential four-day week in Sweet Home will begin with a School Board discussion, which was held Monday night.
During the next month, Schrader and a team of administrative volunteers including Curriculum Director Tim Porter, Holley Principal and Student Services Director Elena Barton, Business Manager Kevin Strong, Schrader and Oak Heights Principal Derek Barnhurst will gather data, research other districts, develop financial savings data and present its findings at the Nov. 14 School Board meeting.
Afterward, a committee of key stakeholders will discuss the impact on students, staff and the community, Schrader said. A negotiations team will negotiate contracts with the unions, and the district will run community forums.
Finally, the district will develop a timeline for implementation, Schrader said. “We’re going to do our best to do our due diligence to make sure everyone is represented.”
Present at the meeting were board members Michael J. Adams, Chanz Keeney, Dale Keene, Chairman Jason Redick, Mike Reynolds, David VanDerlip and Kevin Burger. Billie Weber and Jenny Daniels were absent.
In other business, the School Board:
n Dismissed 28-year-old business teacher Michael Morrell, who is facing four counts of third-degree sexual abuse allegedly involving a 17-year-old student from Lebanon.
“As far as the district’s concerned, we have enough evidence,” Schrader said. “We dismissed him based on our investigation. He was invited to come talk to the board, and he wasn’t here.”
Morrell has been on unpaid administrative leave for the past few weeks.
Sweet Home police arrested Morrell on Sept. 7.
n Learned that a tax rate of about 47 cents per $1,000 would be required if the School District moves forward with a local option levy to fund swimming pool operations.
The rate would fund the pool at approximately the same level as a proposed aquatics district, Strong said. It is based on incomplete property value data from 2010 and an informal calculation by Strong and it takes into account compression based on property tax limitations for education of $5 per $1,000.
The School District is considering whether to place a local option levy on the ballot in May to fund the pool in 2012-13, while the aquatics district committee continues to prepare a proposed aquatics district for the November 2012 election.
The City Council must pass a resolution to allow the question to appear on the ballot, Redick said.
At this point, the window to get council approval and gather petitions is small, Adams said.
At this point, the council is unlikely to adopt such a resolution, Redick said, and he doesn’t blame the council.
An aquatics district would cost the city police levy $57,000 and library levy $5,600, while the city is going into binding arbitration with its police officers’ union.
n Received a report on District 55’s annual School Report Cards, issued by the Oregon Department of Education.
All schools received a “satisfactory” rating except Sweet Home Charter School, which received a rating of “outstanding.”
Holley, Hawthorne, Oak Heights and Foster schools were just shy of the “outstanding” designation, while the Junior High and High School were ranked about the middle of the “satisfactory designation.
n Transportation Supt. L.D. Ellison gave a report on transportation.
The district is transporting 1,425 students on 20 daily routes with 26 different vehicles, three routes less than last year, he told the board. In 2010-11, the district’s fleet traveled 401,000 miles, down from 432,000 in 2007.
“We consolidated routes aggressively and found out it was too much,” Ellison said. The department added back some service. “It’s just been fine tuning the first several weeks – lots of calls.”
It is using transfer points to switch students from one bus to another to eliminate multiple buses on the same routes, which is caused by different bell times at different schools, Ellison said.
The department is collecting money from other districts and agencies for transporting their students to places like the School for the Deaf in Salem and Community Services Consortium in Lebanon, Ellison said.
Behavior problems are substantially fewer since he started more than 13 years ago in Sweet Home. When Ellison arrived, the district was writing 500 citations among 1,800 students. That number is down to about 100 students per year.
The longest bus ride is 86 minutes for a student at Holley school, and another is 77 minutes for a student at Yukwah Campground, Ellison said. Rides could be shorter if the district added a bus and drive back into the schedule.
Burger asked Ellison about four students on Whiskey Butte who are picked up before the bus heads east to Yukwah, spending about 48 minutes on the bus in the morning.
Picking them up prior to coming back down the hill allows the bus to make only right turns, Ellison said. Right turns are safer than left turns. Picking them up on the way back down would require two left turns across Highway 20. On the way back up the hill, they are dropped off first.
“I sat in a bus, and it is not pleasant when you have a loaded log truck driving 55, 60 mph down that road,” Ellison said.
n Learned three Budget Committee positions were vacant, including Holley and two at-large positions. Applications for the positions are due on Oct. 20. Call the district office at 367-7126 for more information.