It’s time to dismiss longer school days
School buses began weaving around the city this week, a reminder to Wichitans without school-age children that another academic year has begun.
Many families with children on those buses know all too well about start times in Wichita schools. Magnet-school students are picked up as early as 5:55 a.m. Elementary school students are dropped off as late as 5:30 p.m.
Extreme bus times such as those are proof it’s time to end the district’s two-year use of a longer school day and shorter school year. It’s not in the best interest of students.
The district’s plan to add 30 minutes to a school day and shorten the academic year by 15 days wasn’t so much of an experiment as a necessity, at first. In the spring of 2016, officials needed to cut nearly $23 million from the 2016-17 budget. Jobs were eliminated, schools were closed, and lengthening the school day was seen as the final, $3 million piece to completing the budget.
Teachers voted to approve the calendar, which was unfairly presented to them as an alternative to eliminating many librarian positions.
The calendar created many concerns. What was hoped to be a no-big-deal extra half-hour has meant weary students, weary teachers and complaints that elementary schools’ dismissal time (4:40 p.m. last year) was far too late to keep a family’s routine.
Not to mention three fewer weeks of school – including a week off at Thanksgiving and 2 1/2 weeks at Christmas – created a brain drain that can devastate student achievement.
Last October, a student focus group said the longer day meant more homework and a more frantic pace in class. The majority of elementary parents in a spring online survey said they were concerned about the length of the school day. The district came up with a compromise for this year – the length of day stays the same, but all schools begin and end 10 minutes earlier.
That means while elementary schools dismiss at a slightly more palatable 4:30, seven middle or high schools begin at 6:50 a.m. Can anyone make the argument that the best time for 11- to 18-year-olds to learn is 6:50? Studies from numerous medical organizations say secondary schools should start at 8:30 or later for more student sleep and better achievement.
Students aren’t the only ones suffering from early starts and long days. Of the 450 new teachers in the district this year, how many replaced teachers who were affected by the change?
Relief, in the form of $27.6 million more in funding from the state, arrived too late to shorten the school day this year. Though district officials knew in June that more funding could cover the $3 million it will cost to return to a shorter day, there were too many obstacles to change in time for this year. That included the teachers union approving a return to 15 more school days.
As long as state funding comes at improved levels, district officials have a duty to return students to a more normal day in 2018-19. Parents should voice their concerns to school board representatives. District officials should begin studying – now – what it’ll cost to go back to an old calendar. Two plans should be devised for a 2018-19 calendar – with improved funding and without.
Of all the district’s cuts forced by reduced state funding and rising costs, a longer school day is most noticeable and one that affects every person in the district – students, teachers, administrators, parents.
It’s time for the longer day to be sent home from school – permanently.
This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 10:06 AM with the headline "It’s time to dismiss longer school days."