By Brandon Bennett
STURGIS— Editor’s Note: The presentation for the 4 day school week is on the district’s website. The Meade 46-1 school board heard from members of the 4 day school week committee on what they found after conducting a survey.
Board president Justin Jutting said Superintendent Wayne Wormstadt alternated giving information about the study. Jutting opened the ball. “For the last six months we’ve been working on a proposed 4, school week. We sent out some surveys to determine if we needed more information or it there wasn’t that much interest in this. We received 1,130 responses and 50 percent and it indicated there was at least some interest in going to a 4 day school week’ he said.
The committee broke down responses into ten categories, the lowest percentage category wondering what fifth day services would be provided to the highest which was scheduling and the calendar for the school year.
Jutting wanted to make it clear considering the 4 day school week is NOT about saving money. “Other districts that adopted a 4 day week saved between .04 and 2.5 percent of their general fund budget. We’re looking at this because it fits our student achievement needs,” said Jutting.
Reasons for the inquiry are academic success, student morale, staff morale and community satisfaction. Superintendent Wayne Wormstadt took over at this point.
“We saw the need to maintain instructional hours,and that equals 154 contact days for teachers and students, but that means 16 fewer days of contact,” he said.
The day would be longer, about 35 minutes longer. Fir example, Sturgis Elementary starts at 8:10 and so would end at 3:35. Stagebarn Middle would start at 7:45 and end at 3:30. Sturgis Brown would start at 8:10 and end at 3:45.
Wormstadt stressed the calendar shown is a draft only and shows what it could look like for the next year. Questions swirled about what to do on the fifth day. It was made clear that there would be weeks where there will be five days with student/teacher contact, and if a holiday falls on a Monday, Friday will be a school day.
“One of the biggest questions concerns child care. We asked patrons what they currently do for child care and there’s a holiday and school is out but they’re still working,” said Jutting. He added as the committee moves forward they will need to evaluate how much daycare is going to be needed.
Part 2: Pros and Cons of the 4 day school week.
The Meade 46-1 school board heard from the 4 day school week committee at its meeting October 13th. Discussion centered on student/teacher contact days, child care needs on Fridays and student achievement. Now some pros and cons were looked at to be realistic.
“‘We need to look at a couple options, looking at an outside resource for daycare or if the district needs to provide that service or if there’s a mix of all that,” said Justin Jutting. He added maybe the district could fund tutoring or daycare or maybe parents pay a fee for services.
Additionally some have thought teachers will be on campus on Fridays, but unless it’s a development day or a workday they won’t be there. And if there was tutoring or daycare what would transportation be like? “Because the probability of a lot of students coming to school on Friday is low there probably wouldn’t be any transportation available,” he said.
Food insecurity is another concern since there will be about 16 fewer student days where they could take advantage of the food service. There are 38 of 148 districts going with the 4 day school week and several are close by, Faith, Wall, Custer, Hot Springs,Belle Fourche, New Underwood, Harding County and Newell. Meade 46-1 would be the biggest district in the state to consider a 4 day school week.
Effects on staff is another concern. “Teachers and administrators are on a 179 day contract at 7 and a half hours a day and would go to 167 days at 8 hours a day,” said Jutting. Once in a while there would be inservice days or professional development days. Hourly staff like custodial or maintenance wouldn’t change as they would work Friday anyway.
The one group who would need help is the nine or ten months staff, paraprofessionals, lunchroom staff and recess staff. It’s been suggested maybe they could help with tutoring or even daycare if it helps keep them busy. As for activities, making it possible for students to come in for practices or coaches to have a day for instruction is an idea.
The next step for superintendent Wayne Wormstadt is to get feedback from the presentations October 13th, 14th and 19th, the 14th at Stagebarn Middle School and the 19th at Sturgis Williams. Next, gathering the information gathered from the surveys and meetings and then conducting more detailed surveys that will reveal impacts on families.
“For example, do you have a child that would need daycare and are you in open enrollment and will this affect your attending the Meade school district,” said Wormstadt.
