School board approves four-class day school week

The Havre Public Schools Board of Trustees, having sworn in two new members, approved a modified four-day week calendar for the coming year in the district during a series of four back-to-back meetings Tuesday evening.

Kevin Johnson and Tyler Gibson were elected to the school board earlier this month, defeating 15-year board chair Curtis Smeby, who ran for reelection, and Tim Brurud.

Incumbent Tim Scheele was reelected.

Incumbent Cindy Erickson did not seek reelection.

Scheele was named chair of the board and Hileman was selected as vice chair, both voted in unanimously.

In a special meeting after the election canvas, swearing in of new members and seating and electing the officers of the board and holding its regular meeting, the board held a special meeting on selecting next year's school calendar for Havre Public Schools.

After a lengthy discussion on the merits of various calendars followed by some emotional testimony both for and against the schedule the new board would eventually approve the calendar on a 5-3 vote.

In the vote, Gibson, Johnson and Scheele, along with fellow trustees Brittneé Loch and Jacob Ingram voted for the calendar, which would see students go to school Monday through Thursday with extended class times and shorter optional days every other Friday.

Trustees Garrit Ophus, Lorraine Larson and Christin Hileman voted against it.

Havre Public Schools Interim Superintendent Brad Moore recommended the calendar approved to the board, saying, in light of testimony on the subject, he feels this calendar is best for students and staff.

He said after his talks with building administration he has 100 percent confidence that they are prepared to make it work, especially since, unlike last year, all the principals are returning.

Before the board began debate on the topic Hileman asked if Johnson would be willing to recuse himself from this vote considering he is related to Erika Brekhus, a teacher and member of the Havre Education Association, which proposed the calendar in question.

Johnson said he would if he felt it was necessary, but he specifically consulted with Moore about the issue of his relationship to Brekhus before he even started running for the position to make sure it was not a conflict of interest.

Moore said it's not uncommon for board members to have relatives in the district and generally speaking the only time they are required to recuse themselves is during discussions of hiring or promotion, and as Brekhus is already an employee this is not the case.

Ingram and Moore said trustees, as a general rule, are expected to vote on every issue brought to the board unless it violates the rules set out within district policy or Montana law.

During discussion, Brekhus said it's important to note that adjustments to the school's schedule can be made if it becomes necessary and that the lower grade levels will not have as long a day as the high school, which has been a concern brought up by opponents of the calendar.

Members of the board debated the effects of the calendar on transportation and sports as well as the merits and flexibility of the optional Fridays, which supporters of the calendar have said is a great opportunity for teachers to instruct in-need students in a way that is more individualized and tailored to their needs.

Support Fridays would run for four hours, with students permitted to show up and stay according to their need.

Moore said they will still have transportation available for those days.

Breakfast and lunch would also be provided on these days.

Moore said even if a student were to not go to a single Support Friday they will get the same instructional hours under this calendar as they would under the current five-day calendar.

Hileman asked Moore what problem this calendar is trying to solve and what measures they can use to evaluate its success.

Moore said there are a number of qualitative and quantitative measures they could use, including student and staff attendance, disciplinary referrals and practically any of the data presented to the board by principals when giving their area reports.

He said recruitment and retention are big ones to look at as well, but it's important to note that these two points in particular are affected by so many factors that it might be difficult to pin down one specific cause of any changes, positive or negative.

He said they can also use surveys to gauge staff and stakeholder satisfaction.

Moore said, unfortunately, there are chronically absent students whom this calendar will not help, but there are others who will be drawn to a learning environment with more individualized instruction.

Hileman then repeated her question.

Moore said this change may be refreshing to teachers and students, will help student athletes who are frequently gone Fridays, and will hopefully improve teacher and substitute teacher attendance as well.

Hileman said she's concerned that the lower grades will see more attendance during support Fridays, creating an unfair inequity among teachers.

Ingram said he understands that concern, but some of this calendar's most passionate supporters have been elementary school teachers.

Larson criticized the process of this calendar's creation, asking why principals weren't more involved and saying she's heard from them that a majority of teachers may not support the four-day week.

Brekhus said she has heard there are a few who do not support it, but in her capacity as a member of Havre Education Assocation, which represents all the district's teachers, she's heard no such number.

A survey of staff last year found that over 90 percent of staff supported the idea of a four-day week or a similar hybrid model.

Larson also brought up the concern of parents finding day care for their children on Fridays.

Brekhus said she is among those parents, as are many teachers at the district and she and her family will find a way to make it work.

Hileman said she's looked over the data and studies, which she claimed consistently show that the four-day school week is detrimental to students academic achievement, which, considering the schools' existing academic problems makes this change a bad one.

"We don't have the luxury of trying something new with simply the hope that it doesn't make things worse," she said.

She said that to vote in favor of this calendar would be a violation of the board's ethics policy which states their primary concern is the educational welfare of students.

Moore said he's looked at the studies Hileman cited, and the schools that saw those drops in performance were ones that substantially cut instructional hours along with Friday, which no one at their district would ever support.

Ingram said the committee that discussed the calendars dissected these very studies in detail.

He and fellow board members said many studies have shown benefits from four-day weeks.

At a forum held last year, representatives of several districts that have switched to four-day districts said the change largely has gone well for their districts.

Larson said the district should instead explore adding one day a week to let out early.

She said she's also heard from parents who've said they will pull their children out of school if they go for four days, which could cost the school funding.

Scheele said that may be true, but in a community survey last year, support for a four-day week came back at 73 percent approval.

"We can't get 70 percent of people in Helena to agree on anything," he said.

Larson attempted to make a motion to have the first semester adhere to a five-day week and the second adopt calendar one with Support Fridays, which prompted momentary protests from the audience and board members to tell her that such a thing is not possible.

Instead she made a motion to adopt calendar three which would see a traditional five day week for most of the school year, with January, February and March having four-day weeks.

The board then opened the matter up for public comment, which was largely against calendar three.

Lincoln-McKinley Early Primary School Teacher Jade Miller said calendar three is the worst calendar of them all and she is absolutely in favor of calendar one as it provides the most support for students and is consistent.

"We're not looking for days off, we're looking to be able to support our students and we want to do that year-round," Miller said.

Many other teachers as well as parents also spoke against calendar three and in favor of calendar one, for reasons that have been stated throughout the almost two years of meetings about this issue.

Proponents argued that Support Fridays will improve student performance and the new schedule will help the recruitment and retention of teachers, which is the number one predictor for student academic performance.

Teachers expressed frustration about not being listened to and fear that a vote against calendar one would cost the district a lot of staff.

Calendar one was not without critics, however.

Josh Chase, who has two children in the district and another on the way, said young children can't handle that long a day and he said that Hileman's question to Moore about goals and measurements of the calendar's success was not answered.

He also pushed back on a common sentiment expressed by teachers, that their schools are places of education, not day cares.

"As much as we hear the schools are not a day care, and I can appreciate and understand that, there are children and there are families that rely on a set schedule and an understanding of what's going to be coming the next day," he said.

He also said there appears to be a lack of planning regarding this possible change and said there are people in opposition who cannot be at the meeting tonight.

Other parents said they fear a four-day week's ramifications on student performance and behavior.

However, other parents were in support of the four-day week, saying they trust teachers to know what they are talking about and the board should be willing to at least try it.

In the end there were eight speakers in favor of calendar one and four who were opposed.

After public comment, board members made closing remarks, with Hileman saying she sees calendar three as a compromise between her preference for a five-day calendar and the desires of the teachers.

She said she believes she is honoring the wishes of Havre Education Association and Moore, as they had, to various degrees, shown support for similar calendars throughout the process.

Ingram said that, in his conversations with parents, he's heard one thing loud and clear, that whatever they decide, that they should do anything but calendar three, which other board members agreed with.

The motion to adopt calendar three failed 3-5 with Larson, Hileman and Ophus voting for and all others against.

Then a motion was made to adopt calendar one, which passed 5-3 with Larson, Hileman and Ophus voting against and all others for.

After the vote, Chase returned to the podium to say that, while he doesn't support this choice, that is how democracy works.

He did however request that the district set up a metric by which the success or failure of the calendar may be judged so they can revisit the decision next year.

"I encourage you guys to use another mechanism besides Facebook or the arbitrary court of public opinion," he said.