W. Glacier to keep four-day school week

The school week will remain short at West Glacier Elementary School.

Earlier this month, school trustees voted unanimously to retain a four-day school week during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years.

Principal Cortni King had polled staff, students and parents about how they feel about the four-day week, which was implemented last fall.

Forty surveys were sent to parents and guardians in the district; of those, only four people representing two families didn’t like the four-day week, King said.

“The remaining 90 percent were either neutral or in favor of keeping it,” she said.

Twenty-nine parents said they liked the four-day week. Twenty-seven people said they would not like to return to a five-day week next fall.

Students generally were in favor of keeping the four-day schedule as well, King said.

“This data coupled with the staff feedback made the board decision much easier with little to no deliberation,” she said.

Staff members had voted unanimously in February to retain the four-day week, King said.

While no concrete student achievement data is not yet available, staff members haven’t noticed a decline in academic growth due to being out of school on Fridays.

Because the school is so small — just 26 students as of Thursday — it’s difficult to get hard data to analyze student achievement, King said. Standardized test scores don’t come out until June.

Instead, staff members have looked at individual students to see if their academic achievements this year are similar to last year’s.

The staff has also looked at how classes are moving through the curriculum; for example, “if this year’s fifth-graders are in the same place the fifth-graders were last year,” King said.

So far, academic achievement seems consistent with previous years, she said.

Having a shorter week also has had a positive impact on family interaction and recreational reading, King said.

According to the parent survey, 23 people thought the four-day week had positively influenced their families.

Even before parents filled out the formal survey in February, King heard from people who liked the four-day schedule.

“It’s so great for us as a family” was a common comment, she said. “Parents really like having that extra day to spend with their kids.”

That’s one reason the Fridays-off schedule works so well in West Glacier, she added. Many parents there work for Glacier National Park or other employers that offer four-day or reduced schedules or even winters off.

That means having three-day weekends gives children “more family time, not more day-care time,” King said.

Some of that weekend time seems to be spent in recreational reading, she said. West Glacier students seem to be born readers anyway; King boasted that more than 90 percent are reading at grade level this year.

The reduced week is possible because the state of Montana requires a certain number of hours of instruction each year, not a specific number of days.

West Glacier meets the 1,080-hour requirement by starting each day earlier and ending later than other schools in the valley.

School starts at 7:45 a.m. and ends at 4:05 p.m. each day at West Glacier.

Those times likely will remain the same next fall, King said, but the district may have to adjust if Columbia Falls changes its start times because some West Glacier students ride a Columbia Falls bus.

The 2010-11 and 2011-12 calendars the board adopted earlier this month align with calendars in the neighboring Columbia Falls school district, King said. West Glacier students will have the same first and last days of school as Columbia Falls and their holidays will coincide.

West Glacier is the only Flathead County school to offer a four-day week.

The school board voted last spring to try the new schedule in 2009-10.

West Glacier originally began considering a shorter week as a possible way to save money but found out actual savings would be negligible: about $5,000 for the year.

Cost savings would happen through reduced utilities, which school officials had estimated would save about $700 a year, and a 20 percent reduction in the custodian’s salary.

Some of the district’s costs have gone down this year because of the four-day week, district clerk Tracy Click said, but real savings won’t be evident until after next year.

“We didn’t really have such a hard winter, so it would be a guess” how much money moving to a four-day week saved the district, she said.