Hot Springs district mulls year-round school

HOT SPRINGS — The Hot Springs School District hosted a community roundtable Thursday night at the district administration offices to discuss the option of adopting a year-round, hybrid school calendar.

Hot Springs Superintendent Stephanie Nehus said the purpose was only to generate thoughtful discussion about the possibility.

“First and foremost, I want to just make sure we set the stage that we are simply exploring the option of an alternate calendar. There are no decisions being made. There are no agendas out there. This is not a done deal. This is truly the beginning of a conversation and an exploration,” she said.

Arkansas law allows for four different school calendar options. Along with traditional and year-round there is the four-day school week and an instructional hours-based option. Nehus said the goal in considering the year-round option is to combat learning loss that students experienced during the pandemic and to close the learning gaps.

“I think there’s some misconceptions of what a yearround calendar is,” she said. “The law is called a yearround school calendar law, and what that law says is that you can host school any time between July 1 through June 30 as long as you have no breaks that are greater than seven weeks, including the summer break.”

Students would still go to school 178 days and teachers would still work 190 contract days — just as with the traditional calendar.

“It’s where those days will fall along the calendar year that would be different if we choose to continue to explore this alternate calendar option,” she said.

Giving an example, Nehus said that where a traditional calendar may run from Aug. 21 to May 31, a hybrid option might run from July 24 to May 23.

“The big difference is the breaks throughout the school year,” she said. “In an alternate calendar, a year-round type of calendar, there would be larger breaks at the end of every quarter. That’s what we’re envisioning with just this concept.”

The year-round calendar would offer a two-week break at the end of the first quarter (last week of September and first week of October) followed by a one-week break for Thanksgiving and then a two-week Christmas break.

At the end of the third quarter in March, there would be a two-week spring break. Nehus said there would also most likely be long weekends added into some months.

“What it boils down to is, currently students have about 11 weeks off in the summer with a traditional calendar. That’s the typical time frame. In a modified calendar, students would have less time off in the summer — a max of seven weeks — and then would come back,” she said.

“The whole idea, or the concept behind even having this conversation, is we’re looking for ways to minimize learning loss of our students. And if we have shorter breaks, we feel like that would allow us to have a greater impact on student learning and student achievement.”

Schools in Marion and Marked Tree in eastern Arkansas use a similar hybrid scheduling format, and Nehus noted that other schools across the state are showing interest. She received positive feedback from the Marion School District.

“I know [HSSD Assistant Superintendent] Dr. [Taryn] Echols had a chance to talk to some of their staff members. I did as well. And we really kind of touched base at the end of that first break, the first week of October, and the feedback we got was that everyone was just so refreshed and thankful. It was a different morale, a different culture in the schools,” she said.

She further noted the possible mental health benefit.

“Since the pandemic, that has come to the forefront,” she said. “We would be hopeful that maybe attendance would increase too for both students and teachers, knowing that you have a break every nine weeks — a significant break — to get refreshed and renewed.”

One attendee said he works in the juvenile court system and has noticed that when kids have structure, crime rates go down. He said crime goes up during the summer when school is out and believes the hybrid schedule would be a good thing.

Among the concerns that were raised were ones related to child care, child custody scheduling, extracurricular activities, summer programs and students who work summer jobs.

“We have thrown around, just in our minds, the idea of offering child care for families that needed it. We have lots of employees who are happy to work during our breaks and would probably be thrilled to do that. So that is one option,” Nehus said.

“We’ve talked about, if this is something we pursue further, talking to the YMCA to see if they wanted to partner with us and offer programs during our breaks. Some of our other community partners as well. If we gather that this is something we want to pursue further, we will send out a formal survey to everyone — teachers, parents, students, community — to get a feel for what those needs might look like,” she said.

Regarding extracurricular activities such as athletics, she noted they would continue just as they currently do and she did not see any major changes having to occur. Summer enrichment camps and summer classes would still be offered, though on a different scale because of the increased learning being done throughout the year.

The district’s next step, she said, is sending out a full survey to find out where everyone stands and then deciding whether to pursue it further. The surveys will go to teachers, staff, parents and high school students.

“Then we’ll share what those survey results look like and what our next steps might or might not be,” she said.

The school board would make the ultimate decision, and she said the “short answer” is that the year-round schedule could go into effect as early as next year if the district community wants it. The district typically adopts the next year’s schedule during its February board meeting.