“When my third-grader’s teacher tells me at our conference that my kid needs more time working at different subject areas, my question is, ‘Well, why isn’t she getting that time at school?'” said parent Joanne Skinner. One parent at the meeting said she wanted her child to be in school longer. Get on with that, and stop talking about getting rid of staggered reading.” We need to get on with the job of dealing with child care and enrichment. “We can’t afford the other extravagant options. “It would be really great if we could state that to get small group reading is to keep the staggered schedule,” said teacher Liz Avery. Parents at the protest earlier in the evening also expressed opposition to a longer school day. Teachers who came to the meeting continued to express support for keeping the staggered schedule and maintaining the small group reading program as it is. Walden added that if the current staggered schedule is kept, “We need to make a serious commitment to expanding child care and enrichment programs.” “It doesn’t make sense to me as a teacher, it doesn’t make sense to me as a parent.” I do not necessarily agree that a certain number of minutes” is needed, said school board member Miriam Walden, who is also a teacher. And board members were all over the map when it came to the longer school day question - with Glasser expressing strong support for a longer school day, while Miriam Walden and Ron Rosenbaum had some doubt about that option. Still, options three and four don’t address the desire of some parents to have a common arrival and dismissal time. She said she couldn’t support the first two options at this time because of the cost involved. It would be ill-advised to take on anything” costly at this time, said Albany superintendent Marla Stephenson. It does not provide common arrival and dismissal times.ĭistrict officials indicated that options one and two would be financially prohibitive. It would include 50,400 instructional minutes a year, with no new teachers needed.
The schedule would reduce the 10:1 ratio small group reading time to 40 minutes from one hour per day. for late birds, with an early release on Wednesdays. The schedule does not provide common arrival and dismissal times. The schedule would come to 50,400 minutes per year, and no additional teachers would be needed. It would require 5-6 additional teachers, working 3-4 hours per day, at a cost of $337,500 per year. The schedule provides 54,200 minutes per school year.
Students would be in small group reading, with 20:2 student to teacher ratios in the same classroom. Additional classrooms, which aren’t currently available, would be needed as well. It would require 12-15 additional teachers, working two hours per day, at a cost of $375,000 per year. The schedule would come to 53,625 minutes per school year. Staggered reading would still be maintained with a 10:1 student to teacher ratio, and art and music enrichment would be provided. The board looked at four options generated by district staff that would allow the district to keep small group reading instruction within a longer school day. “To impose another hardship is to ignore a fiscal reality.” “The issue of childcare is not something we can ignore,” said board member David Glasser.
Late bird school how to#
This week, the board continued to discuss several intertwining issues: Whether to keep the early bird/late bird schedule for grades 1-3 with its 10:1 student to teacher ratio, or use a common arrival and dismissal time whether to extend the school day to meet the state recommended 50,400 instructional minutes per year and how to ease parents’ struggle with child care and enrichment. I can’t understand, when we’re facing unprecedented budget cuts, why they would choose to eliminate this program. “The alternatives wouldn’t be as fiscally responsible. “The program works, it works with the budget,” said parent Julie Tovar, who has children in kindergarten, second-grade and fourth-grade. Albany’s debate over keeping a staggered schedule and implementing a longer school day for some elementary school grades continued this week, as board members struggled to satisfy different groups.Ībout 40 parents and children protested outside the Albany Community Center, where the board meets, on Tuesday night, demanding that the staggered schedule for grades 1-3 be maintained, and that a movement to extend the school day be quashed.
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