A 4-day school week?

On the surface this sounds wonderful! Work Monday through Thursday and have a 3-day weekend every weekend! Sign me up for that!

A local district in the DFW area is proposing to do away with the typical 5-day school week for a 4-day... the reason?

It'll save them money. $2 million to be exact.

Where is $23,000 of that going to go? To the superintendent (chief) of the district. He apparently needs a raise from his $196,000 salary. I read this earlier on WFAA.com and about fell out of my chair. The story is no longer available on their site. Shocker. (Main story is here)

So the proposal is being presented to the school board to change elementary school days M-Th 7:45-4:30 and middle and high school M-Th 8:30-5:30. Now, most people not in the teaching profession probably wouldn't see this schedule as being bad. After all, the normal workday is 8 or 9-5, but let me tell you, I don't need kids in my class to have work to do. On an average day I generally spend 2 hours after school working on tutoring, grading, lessons, etc. If I'm lucky, I may leave once a week when the clock starts with a 4.


Now past the very obvious pro that you would have 3-day weekends every week, I can only see the cons in this situation.

1. Attention span and concentration

Come 9th period (3:05-3:55) my students are already barely capable of maintaining focus and concentration for the majority of the period. Extending the day out to (gasp) 5:30 might possibly kill me. There better be recess included in this extra time, and yes, I mean recess for teenagers. You have no idea how much they need it. I'll even spring for the Axe to spray them down when they come back in all sweaty and stinky.

2. Curriculum timing

I already have to rush through concepts because of lack of time in the school year and the sheer volume of concepts that must be taught, compounded by many days lost for testing (field testing, district testing, TAKS testing). How in the world do you expect me to fit all that curriculum (which already gets short-changed) into an even smaller time frame? Not going to happen.

3. Testing

The center of every teachers life. Again I go to the time issue. My entire teaching career revolves around testing. You give me less time to prepare my students and expect me to meet the fantastic standards of NCLB, or those of my highly demanding district? I think I'll use my Friday's off for therapy, thank you very much.

4. My Friday's

WOO HOO! I get every Friday off! I am going to sleep in, go shopping, go see a movie, anything I want! But wait.... my teaching days don't end til 5:30, and I am NOT staying at the school until 8 everyday, so crap. How is all my work going to get done? I would sleep in no matter how much work I had to do, but these Friday's would be spent working.

5. Parents

Your district just approved a 4-day school week. You now either have to take Friday's off to care for your child or find suitable childcare. Now let me tell you, Lancaster is not that big of a city and there is NO WAY the childcare system there is capable of handling an influx of thousands of elementary school kids for one day a week.

6. HS Students

You are learning to be a mature adult. You have a job. You can only work until a certain time due to child labor laws. Your new school schedule may have easily cut 2-3 hours off your schedule each day, except Friday, which you now have off to compete with any other worker who is normally scheduled during the day. Good luck with that.

Now these are the only ones I've come up with so far.. and I've only had about 12 hours to work with! Call me cynical, but I really do not see the positives in this for the teachers, students and parents. Once again, money rules all. This will save the district $2 million. Since when did profits/losses run our school system?

This year Texas has to abide by a new calendar put forth by my favorite politician, Mr. Rick Perry. *gag* Instead of issuing waivers to districts that wanted to start in early-mid August, all districts must now start no sooner than August 27. Why? To save money. Energy costs are expensive! Hmm.. is it really that much hotter on August 10th than the 27th? What'd you save there? $3? So instead of going from early Aug. - May, we will be going from late Aug. - June. Newsflash, Ricky. It's hot in June too.

Not only that, district exams have been pushed back until after the students return from Christmas break. FANTASTIC. District scores are already at 36%, and that's with reviewing for 3 days before the test. Lets see what they look like after having 3 weeks off! Now I must tell you that our district tests are the hardest tests I have ever seen. I go through and work all the problems and on average miss 1-3 problems. It makes the TAKS test look like child's play... which is why we were only 0.5% passing points away from being an "Exemplary" school last year. DAMMIT! It's probably going to be that close again this year.

All of these things affected by one day being taken away from the school week. I'm sure there are pros to the situation, and it may even be fruitful to try it out for a year and see how things turn out. You may be pleasantly surprised. But the agenda here is clear... do this to save money and it has to be good! Our system has lost the notion that their job is to educate students and do what is best for them. And apparently the superintendent and school board in Lancaster have lost their minds. If I taught in that district and this proposal was passed, I'd be looking for a new job... and quick.

Oh yes, and you must go read Mister Teacher's witty and great response to my previous post: "Living in a World of Women."

Benefits Lapsed

Joey: Hmm that’s weird. I don’t remember being in a move called benefits lapsed.

Chandler: Okay, it’s not a check. They’re saying your health insurance expired because, you didn’t work enough last year.

Joey: Let me see that!

Joey: (reads it) Oh, I can’t believe this! This sucks! When I had insurance I could get hit by a bus or catch on fire, y’know? And it wouldn’t matter. Now I gotta be careful?!

Chandler: I’m sorry man, there’s never a good time to stop catching on fire.

Haha.. classic Friends. I love it. So I go to check my mail, expecting a few cards, a few invitations, a few packages and end up getting my annual notification from the district of our annual Insurance Benefits meetings, new medical and dental plans, and new premiums. Wonderful! Now I'm the first to admit that I know little about the districts decisions involving coverage, premiums and the company used to cover teachers medical costs, but I do have the basic understanding that what we are offered sucks. 4 different PPO plans, the two "middle of the road" plans being the most cost-effective for the average person are probably the biggest sellers. So why should it surprise me that they have increased the premiums and deductibles for these plans? Give me a break!

I rarely get sick. Most of my medical costs are preventative and wellness visits. So knowing full well that in the past 10 years I have needed to go to the doctor ONCE for an illness that needed medical intervention (Pink Eye.. thanks to my wonderful years in the daycare industry), I opted for the 2nd cheapest plan at $35 a month. Not too bad. First semester rolls by, barely a sniffle. I get past Christmas and back into the swing of things and the last day in January I get out of bed feeling a little.. slow. I go to work anyway and by 10AM I am not feeling great. Head into see our wonderful school nurse.. BAM: 100.7 degree temp. Having only taken one personal day for a family wedding in November, I opt to head home and nip this thing in the bud. Hah.. right. That night I shot up to 102.5, called into work, and slept the entire next day. Having not improved at all, I made an appointment w/ the doctor. Now the doctor I went to previously was a good hour drive from my home now, and feeling like absolute #$(&%#, I found a wonderful one 5 minutes away. Go in, a quick "breathe in, breathe out", explain the symptoms, swab of the nose, and confirmation of what I already knew. The lovely flu. I go to check out and clear my tab. That'll be $207.35. Um I'm sorry, I must be delirious. $200??? Hadn't met the deductible so I was paying out-of-pocket. Too sick to put up a fight, I hand over the plastic and head home with empty pockets and no medicine (not that it would have helped). Later that night, I have some sort of blood pressure drop or something because I about pass out on my floor, shake uncontrollably and my heart starts beating so fast I thought it was going to explode. Great.. that sounds normal. A (free) call to the doctor doesn't do much to reassure me.. "If it happens again, go to the emergency room." More sleep and the next day my fever spikes to 105.. I swear I was disconnected from reality. All downhill from there, but I end up taking 10 days off work with only 9 days to cover. My first day back was a blur. I still had a fever, about passed out during 3rd period and had to sleep in the clinic during lunch. Isn't life grand?

So I learned my lesson for next year... get a flu shot! That was my only run in with any doctor the entire year, and I paid $35 a month for my $200 bill. Now Thursday I get the joy of having the wellness visit I know all women look forward to as if it were Christmas, but these visits don't require a deductible so I'm hoping for a smaller bill. I'll wait til then to make my final decision, but the numbers don't lie. If I were to stay with the same plan next year, I'd be paying $50 a month for my coverage... which doesn't actually do anything for me until I reach the $1250 deductible (which will never happen) or I can pay $10 a month and still pay the same price out-of-pocket until I reach the $2000 deductible. And even IF I meet the deductible, I still have to pay 20-30%, depending on the plan.

Potential savings by switching plans: $480

Now as long as I don't get hit by a bus or catch on fire, the change will be worth it.