By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Victoria school district organized a panel Wednesday night to answer questions about a proposal to move its schools to a four-day school week.
The change would allow for more days for teacher professional development, which district officials said they hope will help with teacher recruitment, retention and morale.
Students would attend 10 fewer days per school year, but 30 minutes would be added to each school day with students attending from 8 a.m. to 3:50 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. That would equal about four to five minutes added to each junior high and high school class period.
The proposed school calendar also would have students beginning classes earlier in August and ending later in May.
Officials said they hope the focus on professional development and curriculum alignment would increase student success.
When asked why the district is considering the change, elementary school teacher Brooklyn Pfeifer said the proposal is an attempt to increase all school success and better meet the requirements of state accreditation.
Superintendent Kimberly Woolf said in a prior interview with the Hays Post the district is only receiving about two applications per open position. The district has increased base pay for teachers to $40,000. However, it still struggles to keep pace with pay at larger school districts, including Hays.
"We are approaching a teacher shortage crisis," Erin Braun, Victoria interventionist, said.
She said four-day school weeks can be very attractive for young people or young parents who are trying to find work-life balance.
Teachers would be using some of the Mondays students are not in class for professional development. The new school calendar would double the number of hours the teachers have for professional development from 24.6 hours to 51.4 hours.
Jeanna Wellbrock, parent and school board member, said this time could be used for teachers to align their curriculum.
Christie Sander, counselor, teacher and Victoria Education Association president, said she would be able to have IEP and collaborative meetings on those Mondays instead of trying to juggle them during school days.
Representatives of schools who have four-day school weeks joined the meeting by Zoom and said four-day weeks allowed for more family time, better work-life balance and increased morale among teachers and staff.
Someone asked if the teachers would be paid more since the district would be adding more professional development time to their schedules. Sander said she did not know. However, that could be a bargaining point during teacher negotiations.
Community members expressed concerns students would be spending less time in the classroom under the new plan. However, the teachers on the panel emphasized students would still be attending school the same amount of minutes per year under the proposal.
Another concern expressed at the meeting Wednesday as well as in responses to a survey of parents was child care on Mondays students would not be in school.
Panel members, including parent Sabina Hoffman, who works for Kansas Child Care Training Opportunities, said the district does not have an answer to that problem.
She said state grants are available for organizations or individuals who wish to open child care facilities. Additional child care could be offered through the school or partnerships in the community.
"For us, it's not finding day care. It's what it is going to cost the family," a father said. "We have three kids at 60 bucks a day. That's 240 bucks a month. That is more of a concern than trying to find someone to watch the kids."
Another parent said finding child care once a week for a school-age child is more difficult than finding child care every day through the summer. A community member said it's financially difficult for child care providers to keep spots open for school-age children who would attend once a week as opposed to a toddler who they would care for every day.
Anne Coon, a teacher from Cheylin, which has a four-day school week, said she has employed high school students who are not involved in sports as babysitters on days she had in-service.
Another parent expressed concern children would not be able to access free or reduced-cost meals on the Mondays school would not be in session.
Panel members said church food banks would be willing to help struggling families.
The panel was asked what benefits the elementary students would see from a four-day week. Coon said her children, including her daughter who has Down syndrome, were much more rested after a three-day weekend.
Brooklyn Pfeifer, Victoria Elementary School teacher, said her curriculum would remain the same if the district went to a four-day school week.
The panel was asked how the change would affect special education students. Coon said her daughter as well as other special education students have done well with the four-day week schedule.
Erin Braun, Victoria interventionist, said the requirements of individual education plans (IEPs) for special education students would remain the same under the new schedule.
A parent expressed concern students would experience learning loss over a three-day weekend.
Braun said her research indicates students who attend small, rural schools experienced no learning loss because of the shortened school week.
"Some schools have not seen a jump [in student success], but some have," Braun said later in the meeting.
Wellbrock said research indicates students experience more learning loss during extended summer vacations. The proposed schedule would slightly shorten the summer vacation.
The panelists were asked if the four-day school week would save the district money. District officials believe it will not save the district money. Victoria does not bus students, which is the primary savings that other rural districts have seen in going to a four-day school week.
The panel was asked if the cost of after-school care would decrease because the students would be attending fewer hours. Sander said she anticipated the cost of after-school care would decrease.
The panel said preschool would remain the same at four days, and the district would continue to offer full and half-day preschool.
Panel members were all asked about their stand on the proposal as the meeting concluded. All of the panelists said they were neutral on the issue.
The Victoria school board has not made any decisions on the four-day school week. It reviews its school calendar every year. The board has not approved a calendar for the 2024-25 school year and has not made clear if a four-day school week calendar would be considered for the coming school year or in the future.
Another survey will be going out to parents and guardians soon on the proposal.
"No one is saying that we have to do this," Wellbrock said. "If we didn't look at this and do our due diligence and research it, I think we would be doing an injustice to our students and our teachers.
"We owe them to ask questions and look at things outside of the box."