Kent School District to consider additional late start days

BY KATHERINE SMITH
ksmith@covingtonreporter.com

Late start days for Kent School District students could become a weekly event rather than monthly.

The Kent School District Board of Directors is considering adding more shortened days to the school calendar to give teachers additional time for professional development. The district, which currently has nine late start days throughout the school year, could up that to as many as 30 days.

At a special board meeting May 29 the board heard a presentation from members of the Collaboration Time Committee on the idea of increasing the number of late start or early release days.

The committee ultimately recommended 30 two-hour late start days, which would add up to a loss of 60 instructional hours over a school year.

By law, the district must provide 180 school days and an average of 1,000 instructional hours across grade levels. Chris Loftis, district spokesman, said in a phone interview the district is currently exceeding the 1,000 hour minimum across the district.

“Even at the most robust (increase) we are still over the minimum,” Loftis said. “The overall question is, is less time, better used, a good strategy.”

In the presentation May 29 data was offered showing that peer collaboration among teachers improves teaching and student learning. Some of that data was taken from wider studies and some of it came from Meeker Middle School and Panther Lake Elementary, both of which implemented additional professional development time during the past several years.

“Teachers learn from one another…that sort of professional, collegial sharing really does make a big difference,” Loftis said.

One of the main concerns the district heard when discussing additional late start or early release days is in relation to childcare for elementary age children. Loftis said that district is exploring possibilities of partnering with community organizations to create programs that would offer a variety of activities at little or no cost for students.

“The idea would be to get as many options at each school as each school could physically take on,” Loftis said.

The board first began discussing the idea of increasing the number of late start or early release days in 2010. At that time an initial committee was formed to discuss the idea and seek feedback from community members. The district hosted two community meetings in early 2011 and included questions related to late start days in the 2011 climate survey, did presentations at four superintendent advisory meetings this spring and also commissioned a survey that was completed by CFM Strategic Communications, an independent polling group, in April.

In that survey, the data showed 48 percent of those polled were against additional late start days while 45 percent were in favor and seven percent were undecided.

“The polling tells us that this would be challenging for a lot of folks,” Loftis said. “When you find yourself in that, when there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the discussion, you have to think what’s the best thing in the long term.”

While time is running out to make a major change to the calendar for the 2013-2014 school year, Loftis said it is possible that if the School Board does decide to increase the number of late start days the additional days could be phased in over several years.

“The board has to make a philosophical decision first,” Loftis said. “Is this what we want, what we believe in?”