PWSD changing to four-day week starting this fall
Board extends superintendent’s contract
Students in the Palestine-Wheatley School District will attend classes only four days a week starting this fall.
Meeting in regular session Monday evening, the district’s board voted four-to-one to move to a four-day school week that will see students spending longer days in the classrooms on Monday through Thursday.
Board member Blaine McCoy cast the lone vote against the change. Board members Jamie McCoy and Micah Jo Hilsdon did not attend the meeting.
PWSD Superintendent Jon Estes first mentioned the four-day option to board members last month, asking them to consider the change and to discuss it with the district’s patrons. At that time, Estes said the move could save the district money and allow more practice time for the district’s athletic programs.
Estes told board members Monday night that he had not heard anything negative about changing to a four-day week.
"Last time we met, I brought up the idea of transferring to a four-day week for the next school year," said Estes. "A lot of small school districts in the state are moving to this schedule in an effort to retain teachers. I have gotten mostly positive feedback from parents, students and teachers. I had one parent contact me, wanting to know where we got the idea and another asking about test scores and if it had any major effect on those. Most of the parents I talked to didn't mind the idea. The biggest thing that comes up, that I have not been asked about yet, is what about daycare or childcare on the Fridays that we are closed. The truth about it is that people don't work Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. anymore. They work Saturdays and Sundays. In the other districts, that has not been a problem."
"What are the disadvantages of this?” asked board member Jared Parker.
"It is like when you go to Sunday morning service and the preacher goes on until about 11:45 a.m., when you are ready to say the benediction and go home to watch the Cowboys play, but they keep preaching, and at about 12:15 p.m. to 12:30 p.m., you're not listening to him anymore," said Estes. "For the little kids, I think the mind can only comprehend what the rear end can endure. There are breaks and stuff throughout the day. There have not been schools who have moved to this that wanted to move back."
"The only question I had raised about any of this is that a certain percentage of our student population gets fed here and not necessarily at home," said board secretary Vernon Thweatt. "How will they be affected by us dropping the days back from five to four days each week?"
"We send food home with students in backpacks for the weekend all of the time," said Estes. "We don't advertise or publicize this because we don't want to embarrass the students."
"What time would school start and end with this new
“I think the mind can only comprehend what the rear end can endure.”
– PWSD Superintendent Jon Estes
schedule?” asked board member Blaine McCoy.
"It would start at 8 a.m. and end at 4:10 p.m.," said Estes. "It would be an hour longer. We have to have 360 minutes of instruction each week."
McCoy said that with children not getting out of school until it gets dark during winter, it makes it much more dangerous for them after school.
"I don't like the end time because in the winter time the kids will be getting off the bus after dark," said McCoy. "That's how I feel about it. If they want to go to school five days a week during winter time, that’s fine until the days get longer, but right out here on Highway 70 is the problem. Somebody is going to get hurt right out here at the elementary at dark. If we don't get these cars off of the road, someone is going to get hurt. The Dollar General parking lot can only hold so many people. Do we need to build something? Can we build something?"
"Yes, but they are not going to use it," responded board president Derrick Boileau.
"There are empty parking spaces in the school parking lot every day," said Estes. "Still, people line up along the road."
"You can drive by and see them lined up along Highway 70 and count the empty spaces in the parking lot," added Boileau. "They are going to show up at 1:30 p.m. on Highway 70 and wait for an hour and a half to pick up their kids. If they all would just get in sequence and go in the same direction, they would never stop."
"In the afternoon, when school lets out, everyone is ready to go," said McCoy. "Everybody is running, and that is when I almost hit a kid a little while back. If it had been in the dark I probably would have run them over. That is my opinion on the four-day week."
In other business, the board unanimously voted to accept a recommendation from Estes to give a retention payment to returning employees.
"One of the things we can do with ESSER funds, which is the Covid money that we received, is give teachers extra pay," said Estes. "I recommend that we pay each returning employee for the second semester of the school year a $500 retention payment using ESSER money."
The board also voted to extend Estes’s contract by another year, to be re-evaluated in January of 2023.