A Note From Ms. Rached About the School Time Change
Hello!
In order to fully tell the story of our school times, I’ll first share our past school times with you:
2015-16: 8:20-2:40, M-F
2016-17: 8:20-2:40, M-F
2017-18: 8:20-2:40, M-F
2018-19: 8:20-2:40, M-F
2019-20: 8:20-2:40, M-F
2020-21: 8:30-2:00, M-F (Covid restrictions in place)
2021-22: 8:30-2:50, M-F
2022-23: 8:30-2:50 , M-F
Families may or may not be aware that, as per their work contract, staff have professional responsibilities that require them to be on site beyond the hours of school day. This time is used for professional learning, parent engagement, and other professional work. The default model in the contract is for this extra time that staff needs to be in the building after school on two days of the week. Included in the contract are clauses that allow for individual school choice, as well as a mechanism by which schools are able to modify certain contractual requirements. This process is called the school-based options (“SBO”) process, and is carried out through collaboration between individual schools’ staff and administration. The configuration of the staff workday is one area that allows for such modification.
We used the SBO process in the Spring of 2021 for the 2021-2022 school year in order to shift this time to the beginning of the school day, and break up the outside-of the school day time for staff across the week before the school day, which necessitated shifting the school day from 8:20-2:40 to 8:30-2:50. We repeated this process again in the Spring of 2022 for the 2022-2023 school year.
With the new teacher contract that was ratified late in the school year in 2023, this option was no longer available to schools for the 2023-2024 school year. Instead, we had a few other options to choose from, including combining the Professional Learning and OPW time into a single day, after school, which would necessitate moving the school day to 8:00AM. We decided to use this work-day configuration as our SBO - and as per the process outlined in the contract, I approved the option, and then the staff voted on it. At the time, we thought that having a single start/end time every day would be easier for families, so we moved the start/end time to 8:00/2:20 on all days.
After I shared the new school-day information with families, I heard from many families directly that the 8:00 start time presented logistical and financial burdens on their families. As always, I was grateful for the feedback and happy that families reached out to me directly to communicate this. Although we are keeping the “Early-Morning Mondays,” I worked with the district office as well as the transportation office, among others, to change the times for the rest of the rest to our pre-Covid times. I’m thankful to everyone who reached out to me to let me know how the changes affected their family, to the PTA for their input and feedback on behalf of families who reached out to them, and to our staff for their flexibility with the mid-summer changes to their workday.
Our school day hours are now set for this school year, and in the Spring, we will revisit the staff workday and school day hours for next year. At that time, we will take the feedback that we have heard from families this year into consideration for the 2024-25 school year.
If you got to the end of this, thanks for reading - we appreciate your involvement and concern!
Leila