Washington State Superintendent Says No to Half-Days/Waivers
State Superintendent Randy Dorn throws down on half-days/waivers for school districts, according to a report from KING-5 tv.
Washington State’s school superintendent says he opposes the expansion of half-days on school calendars and wants lawmakers to act next year to give his office the authority to curb them.
“Just because the adults have the problem of not having enough money does not mean we should take away kids' instructional time,” Randy Dorn told KING 5.
“So they moved to this partial-day thing,” said Dorn. “I think it’s a burden on parents, working parents that have to do all the arrangements.”
“I don’t like the idea of waivers. I don’t like the idea of half-days for professional development,” said Dorn. “Especially the kids that struggle the most, it hurts them the most if we’re not in the classroom teaching.”
“The lack of adequate time for professional development, collaboration and planning is just one of the problems caused by underfunding,” WEA spokesperson Rich Wood wrote in an email to KING 5.
Dorn said he hopes to change that next year by convincing the legislature to set standards for a minimum school day, likely six hours. “If there’s two hours taken off a school day, to me it wouldn’t count as a school day,” said Dorn.
Washington State’s school superintendent says he opposes the expansion of half-days on school calendars and wants lawmakers to act next year to give his office the authority to curb them.
“Just because the adults have the problem of not having enough money does not mean we should take away kids' instructional time,” Randy Dorn told KING 5.
“So they moved to this partial-day thing,” said Dorn. “I think it’s a burden on parents, working parents that have to do all the arrangements.”
“I don’t like the idea of waivers. I don’t like the idea of half-days for professional development,” said Dorn. “Especially the kids that struggle the most, it hurts them the most if we’re not in the classroom teaching.”
“The lack of adequate time for professional development, collaboration and planning is just one of the problems caused by underfunding,” WEA spokesperson Rich Wood wrote in an email to KING 5.
Dorn said he hopes to change that next year by convincing the legislature to set standards for a minimum school day, likely six hours. “If there’s two hours taken off a school day, to me it wouldn’t count as a school day,” said Dorn.
Similar legislation -- Senate Bill 5588 -- failed in the regular 2013 session
In its ongoing series “School’s Out,” the KING 5 Investigators revealed the growing numbers of partial days that districts are adding. The reports also showed that waiver days, in which a district gets a state-approved exemption on meeting the minimum 180-day school year requirement, have grown by more than 300 percent in the last few years.
I had not heard about this bill so this will be interesting to follow in the future. It's kind of a rock/hard place situation where we all want teachers to get the PD that they need but we also want a full day of class time for students.
In its ongoing series “School’s Out,” the KING 5 Investigators revealed the growing numbers of partial days that districts are adding. The reports also showed that waiver days, in which a district gets a state-approved exemption on meeting the minimum 180-day school year requirement, have grown by more than 300 percent in the last few years.
I had not heard about this bill so this will be interesting to follow in the future. It's kind of a rock/hard place situation where we all want teachers to get the PD that they need but we also want a full day of class time for students.
Comments
The apparent conflict between enough instructional days and enough PD time can easily be resolved by not having a full week off every other month. I mean, really: November, December, February, April.
It seems to me right now teachers are getting too much bad PD(from the complaints of teacher friends). They could probably do with a lot less if it was targeted toward the actual problems their schools face. And our instructional hours are so low, that if I have to choose, right now I'd choose extra schools hours over the marginal PD.
-sleeper
HP
Why? What do you appreciate about the late start Tuesdays (and in what context)?
(And, that's not a rhetorical question, I really want to know).
I think the early release days are really tough for families to handle and don't like that at all. But, on the other hand, I think teachers need time away from the children to collaborate and prepare (not necessarily "PD" as it is currently constituted). I'd do it by adding hours to the teacher's days (and paying for that time), but I suspect that might be popular only with me (and, I know anything that costs money seems to be a non-starter).
zb
- Jamie
This is High School so it doesn't effect families in the same way that early release and late start do for families with younger kids. If there is a day off during the week, then there is no late start that Tuesday. I believe that Nathan Hale has been doing this for some time. It is a part of the culture.
HP
So is the PD of any value?
NCTQ apparently has no idea how to interpret research results.
PD is often more about indoctrination than anything useful.
Many teachers are not fans of PD. If academic improvement is what is desired, let the teachers teach and end lousy PD.
The Finnish education system, often ranked #1 in the world, provides on average about 4 hours of instructional time each day compared to U.S. schools which provide about 5 hours. Teachers use the extra time to assess student understanding and design curriculum so they are better prepared. Students use the extra time to play at recess, study, and recharge their batteries through various activities. The successes of the methods of the Finnish system point to the need for time away from the classroom – exactly what the early release days achieve.
As a teacher, my observations in the classroom point to the student’s need for more time engaged in learning outside of the typical classroom. I see my students struggle to maintain adequate concentration throughout the day, and by the end of the day, many students seem burnt-out and unable to focus. I wonder about the effectiveness of lessons at the end of the day, and if student’s time could be better spent elsewhere away from school engaged in other types of learning. My intuition tells me that more instructional time is not the answer.
I understand that the early release days are difficult for families, but I ask, should that be our main concern in the education of our students? Shouldn’t we remain focused on the achievement of our students? I believe that teachers and students benefit from these early release days, and that we need to work with families to find ways to decrease the inconveniences they cause.
CD
Teacher Prep Review
I see they cite CRPE as a source.
In elementary school, half days are lost days. They really do nothing except have snack and lunch.
It would be great if "reward" free play days would be banned too. No idea how many lessons my kids lost because they "won" such reward. They go to school to learn, not for daycare!
Anne Oyd
-parent
I'd rather be teaching!
This time is not strictly used for professional development -- or indoctrination, for that matter. In my school, the time is used primarily for collaboration, planning, alignment, and critical assessment of current practice.
If you consider the frequency and the breadth of changes demanded by the district every few years, and the fact that, thankfully, these changes come without curricular guides and common assessments, you would understand -- as Randy Dorn apparently does not -- that there needs to be time to actually build, monitor and adjust the curriculum and assessments around directives like the Common Core.
High school teacher
Why would teaching be any different?
HP
Finland's educational success is in large part because they don't have a high poverty rate. Their social safety net works. Also they don't have a high population of immigrants who don't speak their language well. If you look at just the native English speakers not in poverty in U.S. schools, we look much more competitive.
Just making all the classes shorter and letting them out soon after lunch is not the same as mixing some recess, music, and art into the school day. Having breaks from academic work during the day is a good thing and I agree we should have more of it. But early release doesn't mean any art, music, or physical activity happens, and it's better alternated a couple of hours of academics, then a break, then more academics.
I think high school teacher makes a good point. Working elementary, I don't have the same needs. Perhaps our union is somewhat at fault. Elementary, middle and high school can be very different and those differences should be acknowledge and negotiated.
Principals often direct what gets done on waiver days and half days in buildings so the work is not uniform throughout the District. Some teachers may really appreciate that time.
Finally, it isn't always PD but sometimes budget items and other misc stuff to which schools need to attend.
We spend an awful lot of time on things other than classroom-oriented activity and that's what contributes to my burn-out by the end of every year. If I didn't have those six-to-eight weeks in the summer to re-energize and regain that passion, I wouldn't be able to keep teaching.
If one is going to use the Finnish example, one should first listen to the minister of ed in Finland. He agrees that our culture is different and that makes a difference. http://kuow.org/post/education-lessons-finland-pasi-sahlberg
Please, stop comparing us to a Scandinavian country with a fairly homogenous population and even income/wealth distribution. The requirement for additional instruction is more from the fact that on average, there is not enough support for learning at from whatever parents or guardians may be around, if at all...
Maybe we should start comparing ourselves to Brazil, because that's where we are headed as a society.
--Archibald Tuttle
Waivers are only required for FULL days off, because of the state law requiring "180 days" (partial-days currently count as full days, thus Dorn's point). Currently at SPS the 3 full Waiver days for PD (and also 3 for conferences) were denied by the State in May, but SPS hopes will be approved on the 2nd round in July, hence the Board vote on 2 schedules tomorrow).
Dorn's comments apply to the unregulated proliferation of partial-days off that districts (and individual site-based schedules) allow, because there is NO state law (and NO local Seattle School Board policy, either) limiting partial day releases- as long as kids literally are at school 20 minutes a day, it counts as a full day towards the 180 day requirement (one Seattle middle school last year actually did this!)
Dorn is pushing for less partial days, which in my experience, are much more disruptive than full-day releases. For elementary kids, it throws the whole day out of balance for kids (besides day care hassles & expenses for families).
Even more disruptive, however, is the impact on middle & high school kids on their instructional time. You don't think it matters? Ask the struggling student...
A parent-led analysis “Class time at Seattle High Schools Differs” which was published in the Seattle Times (2008, and still very similar today) points out the extreme differences of instructional time in Seattle High School classes, due to the differences of site-based late arrival/early dismissals for PD allowed by SPS- at Garfield each class had 157.4 instructional hours per class vs. just 134.4 hours at Hale- that’s 23 HOURS of more instruction per class (and multiply that by 6 classes, and Garfield students received 138 more HOURS instruction per year than Hale!!). Maybe the majority of Hale students can afford that much less time with their teachers, but don’t tell me that it doesn’t make a difference, especially for the struggling students.
http://seattletimes.com/html/local
news/2008276859_schooltime17m0.html
What a waste of time.
Yay, Dorn!
Sometimes the PD issue is complicated by the "do we have enough time to do everything they're asking us to do" which usually is no... but most of my pre-teaching industry jobs also asked for more than was doable in a regular work week anyhow.
We need more instructional time, even as Obama naively talked about at the start of his 1st term (total pie in the sky even if the reality of more seat time for lower income students is a large part of the puzzle). Some leaders (my principal) note that we exceed the minimim seat time hours, but that's no excuse for not protecting those extra hours from poor PD and half days.
Yes, it's an area I keep arguing with the union on and vote against when they've had online ballots. We should be pushing admin to minimize the extra stupid stuff they want to pad their resume - not say "ok, but only if you give us more PD time to do it". Some of the time-wasting PD needs to go away and Dorn is right on.
** Frustrated by 'mostly' useless PD teacher**
HP
State’s trainers of teachers criticize new national rankings
My, what is Lynne Varner to do? If she jumps on her TFA/UTR bandwagon, then she'll leave her BFF UW COE Dean Tom Stritikus behind! : (