Print
E-Mail
tool name
closeNew calendar offers consistency
The Sumner School District presents a new calender, requests public feedback from parents, community
Roxanne Cooke
The Sumner School District hosted two informational events last week to educate parents and gauge their opinions on developing a new school calendar with a weekly early release or late start day for students.
The goal of the new schedule: Create a consistent and predictable calendar that parents can plan for and provide more time during the school day for teacher training.
The district is aiming for one day each week that students start school 90 minutes later or end school 90 minutes earlier than usual. The late start or early release days would affect all grade levels and all schools in the district, and teachers would use the time students aren’t in school for professional development and training.
Currently, students have an unpredictable calendar with a mix of full days, half days, late starts and early release days, said Ann Cook, school district spokeswoman. The new calendar has been dubbed “family-friendly” because it will be predictable and easier for parents to plan around, Cook said.
“It does enable families to either shift work schedules, or have regular child care options, whatever works best with their unique situation,” she said.
And for teachers, the current schedule limits teacher training to three days before school starts, one day in October, a half day in January and another full day in March, Cook said. With so much time between training sessions, that calendar is not as effective as it could be.
“(Teachers) come back on fire and then it goes away,” said Julianne Sparks, professional development specialist for Emerald Hills Elementary. “It’s like summer vacation.”
Because teacher training has an impact on student achievement, school district officials want to put more emphasis on it, Cook said. Also, teachers are more focused when their training is conducted during the school day, so late start or early release days would provide a regular time for professional development that is conducive to learning.
Teachers spend their training learning new teaching strategies and analyzing student work, said Jill DeGoede, professional development specialist for Daffodil Valley Elementary.
In addition to learning what the new calendar will look like and what the benefits are to teachers and students, the district invited the public to the open house sessions to receive feedback, Cook said.
Fortunately, it’s not a foreign subject, she said. Neighboring school districts, such as Puyallup, have successfully implemented similar calendars.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel,” Cook said. “We’ve learned a lot from our neighboring districts.”
Changes that would occur under the new calendar include the kindergarten half-time schedule, she said. Currently, half-time kindergartners attend two full days per week and half a day on Wednesdays. With the new calendar, half-time kindergartners would instead alternate a week of two full days and a week of three full days.
That would eliminate the need to send out buses twice every Wednesday to pick up kindergartners, Cook said. That saves the district money.
Kindergarten was only one concern raised by the public. Meals were another.
With either 90-minute late start or 90-minute early release, students will still get both meals, unlike half-days, Cook said. That makes difference when an average of 23 percent of Sumner School District students use the free and reduced lunch program.
“We have some families that depend on (those meals),” said Craig Spencer, assistant superintendent for administrative services.
Some parents also wanted to know where all the extra hours students aren’t in school will be made up. Usually, a snow day during the school year means an extra day at the end of the year, for example.
By taking half-days off the schedule, there is more time already, Spencer said. Plus, the middle school and high school calendars are already longer than they need to be, so this will help balance that out. Elementary school schedules are shorter than they should be, so the district will probably add 10 to 15 minutes to the day there.
Other issues parents had included transportation — especially for early release.
Lisa Wire, from Bonney Lake, has two children in the Sumner School District. She pointed out that if students were released early but had after-school activities, they would either have to come home early and then return to school or find something to do at school or nearby in the meantime. That may be difficult for families who don’t live within walking distance of the school, and worrisome to parents who are at work and can’t provide transportation back to school.
Wire supports a late start day instead, she said. She felt satisfied with the open house and was glad the district wanted parent input.
Though having an early release Friday sounds appealing, especially to families who often take weekend trips with their children, Wire said it may be detrimental to teacher training because they might be distracted on a Friday afternoon.
“There’d be less distractions” with late starts on Fridays, Wire said.