No 4-day week (maybe) for West Glacier

Vote by board may be reconsidered

A four-day school week is not out of the question at West Glacier Elementary School, despite a vote to the contrary on Tuesday night.

The board of trustees voted 2 to 1 Tuesday not to implement a four-day school week beginning next fall.

That decision could change on May 5, however, when the school board will revisit the issue.

Trustees Brian McKeon and Casey Heupel voted against the measure Tuesday. Trustee Carla Martin voted for it.

McKeon said that though he thought a four-day week would work at West Glacier, he wasn't convinced the district needed to make the switch.

The board originally began considering a four-day week as a way to possibly save money, McKeon said, but actual savings would be negligible.

The district could save about $700 in utilities, and its custodial position - currently 20 to 25 hours a week - would be cut by 20 percent, Principal Cortni King said at the meeting.

West Glacier also would save money on its transportation budget because the bus would run one fewer day each week. The district is scheduled to renegotiate its transportation contract in 2011, at which time the school likely will discontinue its bus service altogether, King told the Inter Lake in March.

At a small school with a small budget, every dollar counts. But a four-day week wouldn't save a large amount of money at West Glacier, McKeon said.

"I'm still not seeing a compelling reason" to move to a four-day week, he said. "I don't know that it's worth it to alienate those that can't do it."

One West Glacier resident, Karol Brown, said she would be forced to send her children to another district because she couldn't afford child care on Fridays and didn't want her children to just "hang out" with friends that day when they could be getting enriched care.

"We're within walking distance (of the school), but it won't work for my family," she said through tears. "I don't want my kids hanging out at somebody's house on a Friday. I do not have any other option to come up with some other kind of day care."

Brown, whose children aren't yet in elementary school, asked the board to consider other options and retain a five-day school week.

Based on a phone survey, Brown is in the minority, however. Most families in the West Glacier district seem to support moving to a four-day week.

King asked the 18 families whose children attend the school if they would like a four-day week. Two said no; three were indifferent. Thirteen families said yes - seven of them emphatically so.

If the district adopted a four-day week, 15 families said they would not need child care on Fridays. Two said they would need child care seasonally; one family said it would need regular child care on Fridays.

The school also has talked to families such as Brown's who have up-and-coming kindergartners, King said. Several of them also support the four-day week, she said.

Before the vote Tuesday, McKeon acknowledged that there were benefits and problems with the proposal.

"I think it's going to work, but I think we're going to reward some people and penalize others," he said.

Martin acknowledged those challenges but ultimately thought the benefits outweighed them.

"I think it's better to have that longer period" for learning, she said. "I guess I'll say that I'm for it."

Heupel, the deciding vote on the three-person board, voted against the four-day week, but only because he wants to conduct further research. He wants to find out if there are school districts that have tried a four-day week and then moved back to a five-day week.

Earlier in the meeting, Heupel had discussed the Brockton School District, which tried a four-day week for a year and then moved back to a more conventional schedule. But Brockton - located on the Fort Peck Reservation - is a very different community than West Glacier, Heupel said, and he wanted to find out if there other districts have discovered that a four-day week didn't work well for them.

Nationwide, about 100 schools operate on a four-day week. One-fifth of those are in Montana.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com