Next year, Durango School District 9-R will continue its policy of releasing students about 90 minutes early on Mondays.
Early release is a side effect of Professional Learning Communities, which – in the tradition of school district rhetoric – are better known by their acronym, PLCs.
Every week, PLCs offer teachers protected time to prepare lessons, collaborate and analyze student performance data.
In a news release Friday, Superintendent Daniel Snowberger said, “We are proud of the increases achieved last school year and confident that this continued time for staff will keep us on this pathway.”
In this week’s announcement, the district attributed students’ improved performance on state and standardized testing, including the TCAP and ACT, to Monday early release, saying the improvements “could not have been achieved without this critical time.”
A controversial change
When the district originally introduced PLCs in 2007, it scheduled them on Fridays, assuming early release would cause parents the least inconvenience if it fell at the end of the week.
Last year, Snowberger made the controversial decision to change early release to Mondays, saying, “While Fridays present the least impact on families, it has proven to be ineffective and presented numerous challenges internally.”
The problem of “weekend-itis” (whereby employees struggle to concentrate come Friday afternoon) is well known in many American industries. Yet, at the time of Snowberger’s decision last year, many parents objected. At school board meetings, some complained the change was logistically unrealistic in an age in which most parents work full-time.
Despite parent outcry, Snowberger stuck to his guns, holding special meetings last March to defend the change to Monday release.
At one such special meeting, parent Phoebe Bechtolt told Snowberger and various members of the school board that beyond the vexing child care issues that come with Monday early release, she felt like a “victim of this process.” She said the district’s decision had been unilateral, and parents were barely consulted.
At that meeting, Snowberger told the crowd, “Sometimes we have to make decisions as a district to say how have we helped kids learn and prepare for the future. Sometimes they’re not popular. I know that some parents are very angry at the decision. ... But teachers are human, they have pressures, too. Our least productive time as professionals is Friday afternoons, when we’ve put in five days with kids.”
Results justify Monday
Last year, he promised that if Monday early release proved ineffective, it would be abolished.
Instead, the district is saying the data vindicates the move to Monday early release.
In the release, Snowberger said, “Collaboration and planning time for teachers is critical to support our students’ growth, so that teachers and building leaders have opportunities to look at data and create lesson plans or adjust instruction that not only leads to mastery of state standards, but that also support students in their academic growth and success.”
While the district is doubling down on Monday early release, the decision may still prove to be as unpopular as ever with parents.
In an interview on Friday afternoon, Bechtolt said she wanted early release to return to Fridays.
“I’ve made it work, but it’s still inconvenient,” she said. “I have to put my kids in after-school programs and pay for kids camp. It just seems silly, too: The whole reason is because they couldn’t keep their teacher from leaving on Friday afternoons.”
Bechtolt said she wasn’t very impressed by the amount of time students are spending in actual classrooms. She recalled that when she was in school, she was in classes with teachers all day, every day.
“You get these kids all gung-ho on Mondays, then they’re done at 1:20 p.m. after recess and lunch. I don’t think as much is getting accomplished,” she said. “If we’re going to focus on academics, let’s spend more time with kids in the classroom.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
