Why end school early?
By The Emporia Gazette (Contact)
Originally published 01:34 p.m., March 27, 2008
Updated 01:35 p.m., March 27, 2008
While national organizations advocate parents taking their children to work one day a year, some Emporia parents are doing it once a week. And some parents and teachers say that is a problem.
The Emporia school district this year expanded its early-release program to include all elementary and intermediate school students; the high school and middle school start late once a week.
Releasing students early once a week began 16 or 17 years ago at William Allen White and Maynard elementary schools, according to George Abel, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning.
“Then it slowly expanded to the other elementary schools over time,” he said.
Abel supplied the historical background and the reasoning behind the weekly early releases.
Previously, teachers were required to be on duty before and after school as part of their contract time. One of the district’s principals came forward and inquired about restructuring the time from daily obligations to one weekly obligation.
“Then one day a week, they could let kids go home earlier,” Abel said. “... If they’re only contracted to be there 30 minutes before school and 30 minutes after school, you can’t get much done in 30 minutes.”
Lumping all of the required time into one session one day a week also allowed teachers to meet together to work toward common goals, as well as plan and prepare for lessons.
“We can actually do planning and preparation without having to break it up and start over. We could actually accomplish more in a shorter period of time,” Abel said.
Gradually, all of the elementary schools developed their own early-release programs, and each school was allowed to designate which day of the week the school day would be shortened.
Each principal, however, had to request approval from the board of education, after ensuring that the school’s educators and PTO supported early release.
Fifth- and sixth-grade schools had wanted to take part in the releases, Abel said, but that could not be accomplished because of busing schedules.
“If there wasn’t a common day, fifth and sixth grades couldn’t do it because they have kids that get on buses that go to all of those schools,” he said.
This year, early-release unity came for elementary and intermediate schools. All students are released early from classes on Wednesdays. Abel said the impetus for that decision came from the professional learning communities, called PLCs, where teachers get together to discuss education-related topics, with the intent of improving education for students overall and individually.
“It just gives teachers the opportunity during their regular hours to be able to get together and to collaborate on the teaching and learning issues, where previously they would have to stay after work to do that, and it created problems for them,” Abel said. “Now we can do it with meetings across the whole district rather than just within that school.”
The schools have helped cope with early releases by providing activities from release time until the regular release time, when buses run and students are expected to leave.
On other weekdays, most of the schools provide after-care or educational programs until 5 p.m. Between regular release time and 5 p.m., some parents — and grandparents, other relatives and friends — need to pick up the children or find day care or make other arrangements for their children to be cared for until the parents leave work.
Some parents have found that keeping their children at work is the simplest solution.
Mike Black, vice president and commercial loan officer at CoreFirst Bank, is one of those parents. To him, the early releases are an inconvenience.
His son, Tanner, 11, leaves Lowther South Intermediate School on Wednesdays and walks to the bank to spend a couple of hours before riding home with his father. The Blacks’ after-school child care needs were simplified this year, however, when Tanner graduated from Village School to LSIS.
“This year it’s not as bad as most because he just comes over here,” Black said. “He can walk to the bank and just hang out or whatever.”
Because the family lives outside the school district, riding the bus home is not an option.
Black would prefer that if the district must have weekly early releases, they be scheduled at the end of the week.
“This sounds kind of self-centered,” Black said, “but if you put it on Friday, maybe once in a while I’d take a half-day off and spend the afternoon with my kid.”
The best solution, in Black’s opinion, would be fewer early releases for parents to contend with.
“I think they’d be better off to do one day a month and let them out at noon,” Black said. “To me, that would make more sense.”
Another parent, Mickey Edwards, said she is fortunate that she can leave work to pick up a son who stays for “Flex” time at Timmerman Elementary; at 4 p.m., she picks him up and keeps him with her.
“My opinion is that schools are not baby-sitters,” Edwards said. “They’re to provide education for our children and the rest is up to the parents. I suppose I might feel differently if I didn’t have a flexible job and had to make other arrangements.”
Her older son stays for the QUEST program at Lowther North Intermediate School and takes the bus home at 3:45 p.m. Occasionally, he notifies her that he wants to walk to a friend’s house.
“That’s okay, as long as he lets me know ahead of time,” Edwards said.
Edwards’ concern about early-release centered around the lack of educational activities at Timmerman. At Walnut, where her children formerly attended school, they had the option of attending an educational enrichment program called WWW, the Walnut version of QUEST.
“We’re lucky we have QUEST,” Edwards said. “It’s a great program for kids after school.”
At Timmerman, with the exception of a monthly trip with the QUEST program to the Emporia Recreation Center, Edwards said that her younger child spends most Wednesdays watching movies after classes end.
“The one thing that does bother me is that they just sit in front of a television for an hour and a half,” she said. “Just watching a movie is not enriching in any way. ...That’s probably not what I would choose for him to do if he were at home, but it is convenient.”
Education was a shared concern, both from an educator’ and a parent’s viewpoint.
One teacher, who asked to remain anonymous because of employment concerns, worries that children are missing hours of learning time because of early release, as well as in-service days and other weekday time spent out of class.
“We’re talking about all this testing and they’re not meeting their math and their reading and so forth,” the teacher said. “Maybe they ought to think about getting the kids in school and keeping them there.”
The teacher said that studies show that children learn best in the classroom, and that the more interruptions they have, the less knowledge they retain.
“You’ve got to get them in there and keep reinforcing, reinforcing, reinforcing,” the teacher said. “So every time you have a day off or shorten things, you are taking them out of that environment.”
The teacher also has concerns that learning time is being wasted by teachers’ in-services days with topics mandated by state and federal governments.
“Everybody’s going through a process because the government’s telling them to do it. So they make up some kind of in-service ... and some speaker would be off on some binge doing graphs or doing whatever happened to be the thing for the year,” the teacher said. “And everybody’s sitting there and just wants to get their tests graded and make their lesson plans. ...
“I don’t know whether the principals or the superintendents have any say-so. They’re just going through a process and the kids need to be in the classroom,” the teacher said.
LSIS Principal Nita McLean considers the early releases an opportunity for teachers to collaborate on teaching within professional learning communities and plan strategies.
“It does provide a time so teachers can plan together in the best interests of their students when they’re working with a team of kids,” McLean said. “So, no matter what class they’re in, they’re getting the same education.”
Those PLCs help teachers increase their effectiveness as they discuss methods that work best with individual students and with students as a group. It also provides opportunities for them to find effective ways to provide advanced learning to students who need it, she said.
“We work together as a whole building instead of (in) isolation,” McLean said. “As we all know, several heads are better than one when it comes to teaching kids.”
McLean said that after-school programs at LSIS are geared more toward education than entertainment.
“We run different sessions for them, and it’s on a rotating basis, by their teams,” McLean explained. “So maybe one time they’re doing math games ... then the next time they’re on the stage doing board games, reading a book. ...There’s some PE games going on downstairs.”
Paraprofessionals and instructional assistants oversee and guide the children in their activities.
Students in the intermediate schools also have the option of going to the Lee Beran Recreation Center after early release, with parents’ permission, she said.
Comments
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Posted by hottopics (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 3:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I liked it much better when it was on Friday. I can get distracted during the week and have to scramble to pick up on time. Not to mention, its a early start for the weekend for the kids. I dont know who decided to move it to Wednesday.
Posted by create (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 3:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)
First, that teacher who is quoted here that students belong in school, etc. deserves a giant STAR on her paper. At last, someone who has told the truth, especially about in-services and wasted time for those in attendance who wish they could be off grading papers, designing lessons, or drawing x's and o's while some hired person stands at the front with graphs and charts ad nauseum.
The parents at Timmerman should be screaming. Nothing better than movies after school? This is not enrichment!!! Ridiculous!!!
Early off on Fridays seems to make the best sense. Not everyone can get off work midweek to see to their children. Parents at every school need to be more vociferous. You are powerful, you know.
Posted by madpoet (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 3:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I thought teacher in-service meetings were meant to be used so the teachers could coordinate things etc. I'm glad my kid will not be going to school in Emporia. Sounds like a huge pain in the butt for the parents.
Posted by dj2879 (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 4:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It's my understanding that most of the Quest programs are taught by ESU student volunteers, not even by the teachers. I may be wrong, I do not know this for sure; so please don't fault me for being wrong on that point. But the following is my opinion:
Most of the rest of the population has to work until at least 5, some 5:30, some of the rest of us 6:00.
God forbid, would it be so horrible that the teachers had to work the same hours as all of us normal folk? Now I realize this brings up the points of contract renegoiations, etc.
But if school is released at 4:00 everyday and the teacher's worked until 5:00 everyday...wouldn't they be able to get quite a bit of stuff accomplished?
Posted by native_emporia (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 4:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Create~ You are so right; it is refreshing to hear a teacher speak up.
It's not just the in-service days, but all the days that our kids are in school only to have a substitute for the day, while the classroom teachers are sent off for training. To me that is just wasted time that our kids are in school.
It is time our District looks at re-evaluating the teacher contracts and the time those teachers actually spend with our children teaching them. In the end it is the kids that are loosing out and falling behind other districts due to the mess we have created.
I have to agree with Mike Black that we really don't need early releases every week. Once or twice a quarter on Fridays would probably be more then enough time for collaboration from what I have seen when I am in the schools on Wednesdays!
Posted by citizenT (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 5:33 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The teacher that spoke up was misinformed. The regular school day was extended on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday to make up for the time the students are let out early. The students today have the same amount of teacher contact time as in the past, it is just structured in a different way. Most schools in this district do not spend each week listening to someone go on about their graphs. That type of inservice has been almost entirely eliminated by the advent of Personal Learning Communities. In addition to the early release time, teachers are also required to spend an additional hour before or after school each week. Now 90% of the old inservice time is spent work on planning together, problem solving about students directly under teams of teacher supervision, and meeting with parents about ways to best meet students' needs. As for the time issue, most teachers are at work from 7:30 to 5 or later each day. I personally know many that spend half of their weekend at school, untold numbers of days throughout the summer, and don't even get me started on the hours spent at home each night grading papers instead of playing with their own children!
Posted by BlueKansan (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 6 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Having taught elementary school for many years, I have to take issue with CitizenT. I know the hours that I spent while teaching and grading papers and holding conferences, and believe me, you are not working the same hours as the average person in business. Do you want me to talk about all of the vacations you get? Take the self-serving pity and focus on the problem. I have no sympathy for you. You are getting paid very well to work 180 days a year. Flex time is a joke. When I taught, we stayed after school and came in on in-service days to do these meetings. You can do the same and focus on the needs of the students all 5 days of the week instead of 4 and a half...
Posted by native_emporia (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 6:05 p.m. (Suggest removal)
CitizenT~ I will agree with you that there are teachers that work from 7:30 to 5:00; however, not the majority. I have children at all grade levels and have worked in the schools. Very few teachers will put in the extra time, we have some awesome teachers in this district that do, but those are not the majority.
I also have kept a journal of the amount of time the children actually have with their classroom teacher and the amount of time is very hard to swallow. The teachers need to be allowed to teach the way it use to be and all this in-service, collaboration time, or time teahers spend during a regular scheduled school day out at some training really needs to be re-evaluated. Our district is in bad shape.
Posted by citizenT (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 6:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
BlueKansan
Don't cast stones when you are not presently working in a school. The changes implemented in the Emporia district this year have been huge. NCLB continues to ratchet up the requirements (aka: hoops teachers have to jump through) for any district on improvement, which Emporia is. I do not appreciate the "self serving pity" comment as I am not a teacher, only speaking for those poor overwhelmed souls that are trying their very best to do what they are being asked to do. You may have spent your flex time as you chose, but I know many that meet themselves coming and going trying to get it all done this year. I know some amazing teachers that seriously want out because there is so much to do in so little time today. I come from a family of dedicated teachers, and can't believe how people that are unwilling to do the job feel qualified to judge teachers! They aren't making the decisions, they are just trying to comply with them! If the public doesn't like the way the education system is run look to the politicians and lawmakers to get changes made!
Posted by create (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 6:43 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"NCLB continues to ratchet up the requirements..."
I hope that isn't a complaint because that is how NCLB is supposed to work. And if a district is on improvement status like Emporia is, there should be hoops, lots of them. State standards and benchmarks must be met, and if not, schools must work harder to meet them.
Posted by hottopics (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 7:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I know that my childs teacher is gone a lot at meetings. It amazes me at how much time a teacher is gone from the class room these days. But in the teachers defense, the school requirements of the curriculum is RIDICULOUS!!! What they are forced to cram down our kids and REQUIRED to show they are learning would make me want to leave teaching too! Low pay, long hours and frustrated kids. My kids are swimming in a pool of education and many are drowning because of it. Summer school, extra study time, math and reading help, the list goes on. Give these kids a break and give the teachers room to breathe. No one enjoys going to school anymore, student or teachers.
So you so take it to the district, to the senate, etc. They have to already know this is a huge FUBAR. But they just dont want to admit it. Its not rocket science and I agree, we need to go back to the way it was. Back when school was fun and so was learning. I agree that a once a month early release is much, much better. Wasnt it that way just a few short years ago? More is not better when it comes to education.
Are you listen Board of Education Members?????
Posted by rmbcollege (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 7:17 p.m. (Suggest removal)
In response to the questioning of why there are no early releases on Fridays, the district wanted consistency in the day that the students are getting out early. Wednesday was a reasonable choice for the mere fact that this day rarely fell on a holiday, in-service, or teacher workday where the time lost would have to be made up by the teachers. There are only so many hours in the week and the teachers are required to fulfill so many different time obligations so having to make up additional hours on top of those hours is just a pain. The requirements that teachers are being expected to complete are ever changing and are continually being added to because of state requirements.
dj2879-
These so called “normal folk” that work until 5pm or so have an advantage over most teachers. They receive this thing called a lunch hour and guess what, that lunch hour is an actual hour. Wow! What is that in the world of teaching? Teachers are guaranteed at least a 20-minute duty free lunch, of course this varies for the grade in which you teach. In addition, quite a few teachers can be found at the school working until 5pm or so. The misconception comes when there are also those teachers that show up exceptionally early, 6:30 or 7am, and people see them leaving at the same time as the students. Teachers get their hours in however it works best for their schedule.
Posted by emp205 (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 9:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sadly, this issue of early release is complicated further by the fact that on average a teacher (at Timmerman) in this case can be out of the classroom up to two to three times a month on "in-service". This puts a sub infront of our students. The PTOs need to challenge Dr. Able. We have an institution in the two nationally known for education. I am sure there are resources at ESU that could provide some vision for the Board of Education. I think it is time to keep the students in school and the teachers in the classroom!
Posted by citizenT (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 9:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I am not complaining, just stating reality for those that don't realize the difference between conveinence and requirements.
Posted by emp205 (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 9:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Oops, sorry should have spelled Dr. Abel's name correctly. - Sorry!
Posted by starfire (anonymous) on March 27, 2008 at 9:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Five words:
Parents have ALL the power!
Don't like something that is going on? Gather a group of parents with similar thoughts and challenge the principal. If you don't get anywhere, go above the principal. Don't stop until you see a change!
Get going!!!
Posted by eattheapple25 (anonymous) on March 28, 2008 at 7:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Missing hours of learning? I remember two things about school I either slept or read a book. I got mostly A's and a couple of B's. The teachers kept telling me: "Mr. Eattheapple, if you didn't get such good grades we would tell your parents what you do everyday." I didn't know where my locker was, refused to take my school books home, and stored everything in my gym locker. I also heard "what until you get in the real world." Being a successful adult/father/husband/former Marine, I have experienced this so called real world and it is exactly like high school. What I have learned in this world was by experience. Sure the need for education is there, but real hands on experience is the key. We ask for our teachers to become more and more like baby sitters instead of freeing them to teach us what we really need to know about their classes' subject. We have very few Mr. Marstall's who actually allows thought to occur in his class. We have very few Mr. Grant's who teach not only proper diction for our singing but life lesson's as well. I remember being afraid to act up in Mr. Miller's gym class because he wouldn't let it stand. Mrs. Garrett actually took the time to explain geometry to me and some of its potential uses. Mr. Carl even who I like now as an individual but disliked as a teacher (said I missed a question about All Quiet on the Western Front) instilled in me a deep appreciation for this country's history. We have a lot of good teachers, untie their hands, let them teach what they need, and then let everyone involved in school to spend more time with their families. As always feel free to send your hate email to eattheapple25@gmail.com
Posted by nmse_s (anonymous) on March 28, 2008 at 7:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Teachers have a challenging job ahead of them, especially in the present time due to NCLB and other standards set forth by local and state school boards. My kids tell me at least 2-3 times a month that their teacher wasn't there because of a conference or meeting they had to attend. For my daughter's teacher to be gone brings a negative impact to her learning. I also believe the early release days brings a negative impact. For the kids to be out of school so much makes it that much harder for them to meet the standards set forth before them. Parents do need to step up and help when they can but it's hard to help your kids when you face the possibility of confusing them because it's just another style of learning they have to get used to (from their subs, teachers, parents, etc). I don't think there is a consistency to the learning because of the early release days and teacher in-service days. Emporia is the only school district I've been involved in that implemented this type of schedule and now our kids are in school longer than most districts around Kansas. What's the solution? I don't know but something needs to change.
Posted by Mommyof4 (anonymous) on March 28, 2008 at 9:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
My children attend Timmerman (We love the school). I have to be to work at 7:30 and my children utilize the before school program at the school. I see teachers arriving to work at the same early time that I drop my children off. I work until 5 or 6 depending on what is going on at work and when I am able to pick up my daughter from the quest program at 5pm, I see the same teachers leaving that were there early in the morning. There are many teachers that put in as many hours as any other working person and others that put in much more and much less. There are parents that are able to pick their kids up early on Wednesdays with no problems and complaints and others that struggle with the event. (I struggle) Unfortunately changing the day of the week, the time of release or how many times the early release occurs in the month will not work for everybody. There will always be someone who has a problem or issue with the idea if it occurs or doesn't. I do wish that there were better programs for the kids during this time, ones that help with reading or math or that offer some good physical activity.
Posted by Deepthoughts (anonymous) on March 28, 2008 at 2:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm sorry - I got confused, exactly what is the point of this early release thing again? Was it to further educate the students (by watching movies at Timmerman), educate kids about the real world (sit in a bank probably disrupting the people working while waiting for dad to get off work) or what?
Someone said Wednesday was picked because they wanted consistency - well here is a thought - eliminate early release and then what do you have? Consistency - kids go to school and get out of school the exact same time every day of the week. If teachers are using that time after school to work with each other (I thought that is what in-service days were for), then when are the students supposed to be able to see the teacher for additional help? Just curious - this was not around when I was in school and I did just fine.
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