Calendar vote cancels early release by trading snow days for Friday collaborations

Wednesday. It’s no secret that hump day is infamous for its awkward timing -  too far away from the energetic start of the week and nowhere near the relief of the weekend. But once every month, students are blessed with a golden day of relief: early release. With the recent release of next year’s academic calendar, however, the district pulled the plug on early release. 

Although the current schedule is being eliminated, the time will just be repurposed, according to Principal Erin Kohl. 

“The biggest change to the calendar is that the district is no longer going to have early release days,” she said. “Instead, there’s going to be about one Friday a month, although there’s a couple of months where we don’t have one, where there will just be no school.”

The decision comes after careful consideration and discussion within district leadership.

“The district has a calendar committee that has representatives from administration, teacher representatives, support staff representatives, clerical representatives, and at all levels elementary through high school,” Kohl said. “That committee gets together and discusses what the needs are and discusses issues with the current calendar and makes recommendations to the board of education. A direct calendar was brought to the board of education in January and voted on at the last meeting and passed.”

Some of the most driving factors for the change came from comments by students and parents. Kohl has heard some of the concerns since the beginning of early release. 

“We get a lot of feedback from families that it is really hard to pick up kids or find daycare for kids if they have younger children when school gets out so much earlier,” she said. “A lot of parents work during the day, so it’s just a challenge for people to find childcare and work out those logistics once a month.” 

Kohl is excited to provide more work time and collaboration for teachers in full days instead of hour increments. 

“If we do this once a month, we’ll get a much larger chunk of time for teacher collaboration and professional development,” she said. “Right now, with early release, some of the dates are for district-wide collaboration and some of them are for school collaborations within the school. There’s just recognition that there’s a lot of work to be done and so we need more time at both the district-wide and school-wide level for teachers to collaborate.”

Students and staff alike have mixed reactions to the end of early release days. Junior Karizma Vazquez is ready for the change.

“I actually like the idea,” she said. “I feel like it gives kids more of a chance for a longer weekend to get things done.”

Other students have more mixed feelings. Junior Lily Molash remains neutral.

“I don’t know how to feel,” she said. “I think it’s just weird because it’s new, and I’m used to the early release days, and I like them, but I think it’s ok.”

Math teacher Megan Mueller sees both benefits and negatives with the adjusted schedules.

“I think that there’s benefits to both,” she said. “The new schedule gives teachers a little bit more time to collaborate and bigger chunks of times opposed to just two hours, but I also like seeing kids five days a week, so giving that up once a month is kind of hard, but if the amount of class time balances out than I don’t see an issue with it.”

Although the elimination of early release days altogether takes off instructional learning time, Kohl affirms that the schedule was adjusted accordingly to make up for the time. 

“We’re required to have a certain number of instructional minutes each school year to be in alignment with regulations from the Department of Public Instruction,” she said. “All of those minutes were calculated to determine if this is something that we could do and still get in the required instructional minutes. I think the biggest difference that kids will notice is that if we have snow days, those snow days are going to be digital learning days now. That’s where we’re making up some of that time.”

Senior Robert Valero is glad the district is finally implementing the long-awaited changes. 

“I’m happy, but I wish it would have happened sooner,” he said. “I always thought that our system was kind of inefficient so this is a better way to divide up the space that the teachers meet so that they have a full day. I think it’s good for students to have an occasional three-day weekend.”

Spanish teacher Justin Hable feels the new schedule will be better accommodating to students. 

“We hear that students have a lot of stress, so that allows for one day a month for a mental break to be included,” he said. 

Kohl believes these days will be the perfect opportunity for students to get a fresh start. 

“For students who get a little bit behind in school, they really could use that Friday to catch-up on missing assignments that they have,” she said. “I think that there’s just a lot of advantages to having that full day every single month that you can count on for that.”

Mueller mentions difficulties as a teacher cutting down lesson plans.

“Early release days are a whirlwind,” she said. “40-minute classes are fast-paced and sometimes harder to get through specific material, especially with math.”

Spanish teacher Jennifer Olivares feels the drawbacks of the timing, but in a different way than Mueller.

“I feel like the most challenging part of early release days is feeling like you're done then having two additional hours of meetings to go to,” she said. “But Spanish is not a lab class, so I feel like it’s doable.”

Hable agrees that language classes are more flexible and can easily adjust compared to other classes.

“We just eliminate one of our activities for the day,” he said. “I can definitely see problems if you have a 40-minute lab.”

Despite the strong reactions, Mueller thinks most students and staff will have no trouble adjusting to the new norms.

“I don’t know if it will have that big of a change,” she said. “We run different schedules all the time and students are very flexible with those schedules. I think it’ll just be another routine to get used to.”

Olivares chooses to stay positive and keep on adapting past any challenges or changes in the future.

“I think I'll make the most of whatever the situation,” she said. “I think there’s value in having a full day for professional development and collaboration because often within two hours we just kind of find our groove and then the day is done, so I definitely think there’ll be some value to a longer period of time. But I guess I personally feel like as long as you're using your time effectively, whatever time you have with students, you’re probably going to find success and progress regardless of what the schedule is. 

By Hannah Chung

Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue V

February 22, 2022