School board considers four-day week

At their January 17 meeting the Hot Springs County School District Board of Trustees held a lengthy discussion on whether or not to move to a four-day school week for the upcoming 2017-18 school year.

Six years ago, when the board decided to move to the 4 1/2 day week, it wasn’t a financial decision, but one based on student absenteeism and a better way to combat it, especially on the high school level. At the time, the majority of missed school days were on Fridays with students participating in sports and extra-curricular activities. There was also an issue with teacher-coaches being absent in the classroom on Fridays as well.

Moving to the 4 1/2 day week has worked well at eliminating those absences by both students and staff despite initial push-back from parents.

The thought of moving to a four-day school week now is a financial one.

The Wyoming State Legislature is looking at deep cuts to education, somewhere in the $350 to $400 million range, leaving schools across the state scrambling to figure out how to deal with the shortfall.

Superintendent Dustin Hunt said in all his years in education this is the first time he has been really nervous about what could happen in the legislature.

“We’ve always been conservative in the district,” Hunt said. “We haven’t been extravagant with our spending habits.”

Nonetheless, Hunt said he has spent a lot of time drawing up at least 15 scenarios as to what may happen this time.

“At this time, not knowing what will happen, I want all our options ready to go,” he said.

The district has until March 8 to submit their plan to the State Board of Education.

For discussion purposes, Hunt suggested the four-day week, providing figures on cost savings to the district.

The reduction in the need for substitute teachers with the four-day week would save the district about $17,000 for the year. Add to that dropping food service for one day since school would not be in session on Fridays, and you see a savings of $14,000.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t completely cover the estimated $54,000 shortfall. Hunt would like to have a bit of a cushion so he estimated the shortfall could be closer to $60,000.

“This amounts to about 7 1/2 positions over the next few years,” he said. “Now some of those positions will be lost through attrition, retirements or teachers leaving their positions to go elsewhere.”

Hunt reiterated to the board that the requirements do not change. In other words, the minutes of classroom time do not change. That would mean an earlier start time in August, somewhere in the neighborhood of a week early, and a later stay, sometime into June, than we have right now.

The savings will really come from the classified staff like secretaries not working on Fridays since school will be closed anyway. However, the board will still have to dip into the reserves to make up the difference.

“I don’t want to just say ‘four-day week’ without knowing what is going to happen with the legislature,” Hunt said. “I would rather dip into the reserves for a year and really come up with a plan that includes public input. If we need to let some programs go, we have to assure the public that we’ve gone over every possible scenario before making any cuts.”

The board whole-heartedly agreed the public needs to be heard on this issue, adding that the attrition issue could be avoided if the legislature decides to go with a higher student/teacher ratio in the classroom.

If everything with the legislature stays on track, the district should have a better idea what they are going to be facing some time in the middle of February.

Until that time, Hunt said he would like to have two plans ready to go to submit to the Board of Education by the March 8 deadline.