News

Dunseith school will go to a four day school week

By Scott Wagar

04/15/2014

The Dunseith Public School Board has made the decision to go to a four day school week starting this fall, which they believe will assist its students in gaining a better education.

On Tuesday, April 8, the school board’s monthly meeting took place where its board members held a final discussion about going to a four day school week, instead of the traditional five day school calendar. The discussion did hold some opposition, but in the end the board members voted unanimously to go to a four day week, which makes the Dunseith school district only one of two towns in the state to have a four day week of learning.

ORIGIN

The issue of a four day week in the school calendar started in the 2012-13 school year when Dunseith School District experienced A $600,000 cut in it federal funding. During the 2012-13 school year, the district received only 85 percent of its federal allotment, and the school has been told to anticipate no more than 60 percent of this school year’s allotment, which is an estimated decrease of $512,500.

With major cuts in the federal funding, the district had no choice but to cut four positions and consolidate one school bus route.
With concerns of losing more federal money, the district looked at a number of items this past summer to assist the budget, which included reducing employees, removing academic or athletic programs, reducing spending by a large percentage or reconfiguring the school year calendar.

By conducting the reconfiguration, the school district could save 1.5 to 2 percent of the budget, along with not having to make cuts with employees.

Other issues concerning the administrators and school board members are student and staff absenteeism, which is excessive in the school district. While looking into absentees in the schools, the district discovered that the majority of it takes place either on a Monday or Friday.

By making the school week into a four day calendar, the district hopes to reduce absenteeism and improve moral within the school.

“In the studies that I have read since July, the studies show staff moral, student moral, staff absenteeism and student absenteeism, those dropped and moral came up,” said Pat Brenden, superintendent of the Dunseith Public School District. “Did it affect grades? No study out there is going to show huge gains in grades. There is not a study out there that shows that. There are small gains, but not huge gains.”

FOUR DAY WEEK
        
Brenden also added details about how the school day and week would work in the district.

“We start the same day as we did this year and we end on the same day as we will this year,” Brenden stated. “We will just have fewer days for the students in the classroom.

“When you look at the four day total minutes, our elementary kids will be in the classroom about seven days more than then our current calendar this year,” Brenden said. “And, our high school kids will be in the classrooms about two days more than this calendar year. There will be fewer days, but more instructional time.”

Brenden also stated that teachers and staff would keep their 40 hour work week. On the day where classes would not be held, teachers would be expected to work every other week at the school in professional development programs and conducting routine maintenance that normally gets set aside until the summer months. Teachers would also provide tutoring session to students on this day to provide additional assistance in their school work.

The teachers’ classroom time with the students in a four day week would become a 60 minute class period instead of a 50 minute period. During this time, teachers would provide direction instruction to the students for 45 minutes and spend the remaining 15 minutes educating students in small groups or one-on-one tutorials with students who have below average grades. The additional 15 minutes of instruction would count toward one hour of directing tutoring.

SURVEY

Brenden stated that 86 percent of all the parents had been contacted by phone and 95 percent of them were in favor of changing over to a four day school week. He also stated that the remaining 14 percent would be contacted and he expected little or no opposition of going to a four day school week.

THE DEBATE

At the Tuesday meeting, during the discussion of the four day school week, two individuals protested the four day calendar. The first individual stated that she was representing the parents who were against the four day week. She also stated that she was a member of the Turtle Mountain Community College, which actually has a four day school week on its college campus; however, she stated that studies showed that young students grow tired in the four day week because of the long hours the students have in the classroom each school day.

The second individual was a mother who has kids in the school district, who said that Dunseith has a tremendous number of pregnancy along with a high crime rate. Her concern was that on the day students have off these statistics would increase in the community because there would be no supervision for the children at home with parents working. She added that most parents cannot find or afford day care; so, these students would be on their own and more than likely find trouble to get in to.

Another parent at the meeting disagreed with the mother and stated that it wasn’t the school district’s responsibilities to provide day care and that was the parents’ responsibility. The mother agreed with the other parent, but stated that in reality it wasn’t that easy considering some families have larger families which makes it more difficult to control the situation at times.

Brenden stated that having local school children unsupervised on the students’ day off in the week concerned the staff of the school. With this concern, Brenden said that the school district is attempting to start a program which would assist high school students to become trained in child care, and have those students operate a day care in the school. The additional staff in the building would be there to assist the students and supervise them, and, the students would be given the opportunity to learn skills in operating a business.

He added that the school district is also looking into other educational programs the school could offer the student body on the students off day.

THE VOTE AND FUTURE

With the discussion over, the school board members voted together to have a four day school week. At the present moment it is not known what day the students will not have class, but that it would either be Monday or Friday.              

The school district has approval from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to have the four day calendar for one school year, at which time the district will have to re-apply for an additional year and be approved again by the DPI. After the next academic year (the second year), the school district can re-apply again and if approved by the DPI then Dunseith could have a four day school week for the next five years.

The Dunseith School District’s goal is to try this school calendar for one year. If it works out, the district will apply for a second year if the DPI approves. If it doesn’t work out for the best in the district, the school board will go back to a five day school week.

“Is this the cure all for it? I don’t know or can’t say that until we try,” Brenden said. “There are 21 states that are allowed a four day school week and none of the states have seen detrimental affects through it.”

The only other North Dakota school with a four day school week is East Fairview, N.D.