NCSD considers eliminating early out days for remainder of 2020-21 school year

Three snow days and the delayed start caused by the summer derecho have forced administrators at Newton Community School District to consider eliminating Monday early outs for the remainder of the year in order to make up for lost instructional time.

Students in Iowa are required to have 1,080 hours of instructional time each year. Currently, the district needs about 18 hours — or roughly three days — worth of time with students, which Newton Superintendent Tom Messinger says could be made up by turning early out days into regular school days.

“Our students would come to school the same hours five days a week, rather than Tuesday through Friday being regular school days and Mondays being an early out,” Messinger said at the Monday, Feb. 8 school board meeting. “… We’ve lost just over 19 hours of time due to those three days missed.”

If the 2020-21 calendar was adjusted the way Messinger described, students would be dismissed on Mondays at about 3:30 p.m. rather than 1:15-1:45 p.m., depending on the building.

On the other hand, teachers would stay an extra hour for professional learning community (PLC) time 3:30-4:30 p.m. every Monday for the remainder of the school year, adding up to 14 hours or 12 hours if two professional development days on Feb. 22 and April 26 are not included.

Teachers would also stay until 4 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, adding 1.5 hours per week towards their contractually required days. From Feb. 15 to May 24, Messinger said 21 hours would be added to teacher contract time, or 22.5 hours if extended to May 31.

In August, the derecho — whose 100 mph wind gusts ripped through Jasper County and other parts of central and eastern Iowa — displaced many people in Newton and left others waiting a week or more for electricity and internet to be restored. To allow families to recover, Messinger delayed school for two weeks.

Doing so required multiple amendments to the district’s calendar, which were approved by the school board. Per those changes, students would finish their school year on June 4; meanwhile, teachers would have to work until June 8 but were given the option to work flex days to make up for it.

Since then, the school district has had to cancel classes on Jan. 15, 26 and Feb. 4 because of harsh winter conditions. If the calendar goes untouched, students and staff could be on track to finish the year on June 14.

“This does not take into account if we were to have more snow days,” Messinger said. “This is for the number of days that we’ve missed to date and how we can stay in school for that original set time that we had.”

Although the derecho didn’t directly cause missed school days, the late start as a result of the storm has given the district less wiggle room for make-up days. Messinger says not going any further into June is a high priority. Administrators want a “meaningful education” for the students and still allow summer vacation.

Remote learning during snow days could be a possibility. Messinger said part of what makes remote learning successful is planning for it. When administrators know of an advanced notice blizzard, they can send materials and devices to students’ homes ahead of time. Unforeseen forecasts make that more difficult.

School board member Robyn Friedman wondered if coaching or games would interfere with the new PLC time, suggesting some teachers’ schedules might make them hold practices later. Messinger said there are instances when teachers have had to leave early for events and activities.

“They would still be needing to leave before the end of the school day — we couldn’t reschedule all of our game times,” he said. “… But with practice times, our first priority would be if we have coaches who are not teachers if they would be there for the supervision to get things going, then the teachers would join.”

Still, administrators also want to prioritize and protect PLC time.

School board member Travis Padget said he was not a big supporter of the early out Mondays. Considering the low-socioeconomic status households, Padget worries about changing the early outs now after it has already been in place for a couple of years. Still, he is supportive of the changes Messinger wants to make.

“But be aware of how these could affect our families,” Padget said. “We made this change to them about three years ago, I think. And I think it’s proved fruitful for our administration and our teachers, but I want to make sure we don’t damage more families by changing it.”

Feedback from teachers told Messinger that most largely agree they don’t want to go further into June to finish the school year. Other teachers worry about meeting their other commitments outside of school when they have to work later every day.

Messinger also sent a survey out to parents to receive even more feedback. With about 1,000 replies back, Messinger said more than 90% of parents were in favor of giving up early outs in order for students to finish by June 4.

Newton administrators will notify when or if any of these changes were to go into effect.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com