TDHS students weigh in on new schedule, hardship of eliminating early releases
Snow days force new schedule at The Dalles High School; students offer solution that allows for oversight of siblings
By Ken Park
The Dalles, Ore., March 1, 2024 — The Dalles-Student representatives from The Dalles High School pitched an alternative to the North Wasco School District board's proposed school schedule to make up for the instructional time lost during the winter weather.
The proposed and ultimately approved schedule will have all students attend a full day of school on March 8 and May 24, a teacher work day will occur on March 15, and beginning March 20 all The Dalles High School students will have full days of school on Wednesdays through the remainder of the 2023-2024 school year.
The decision came at the regular board meeting on Feb. 22.
Student Alternative Offered
Student Representative to the Board Yamari Santillan-Guzman
Student Representative to the Board Yamari Santillan-Guzman and Associated Student Body Executive President Mayett Winwood presented the proposed alternative that would allow High School students to maintain their early release Wednesdays and still meet the state instructional education requirements.
One of the main concerns for students was the ability to care for younger siblings in the middle and elementary schools, who would still be getting released early on Wednesdays.
“There are concerns with the ability to pick up younger students as this piece of the schedule change only applies to high school students,” Santillan-Guzman said. “I know a lot of my friends are responsible for their siblings in middle and elementary school, I used to be reliant on an older sibling and I think this decision will heavily impact a lot of families and bring up the risk of young children being left at home alone if they find a way to get home because there won't be an adult or supervision available.”
ASB students did the math and found a way to make up for the lost instructional time and meet state standards without sacrificing the early release days.
Students Do The Math
“The Oregon Department of Education says, that students need up to 990 total hours of instructional time each year, which is 330 hours each trimester,” Windwood said.
During the first trimester of the 2023-2024 school year students were in school for 56 days, 12 of those days were early release.
ASB calculated that each class on a full day of school, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday was about 73 minutes long, while classes on Wednesdays were 57 minutes long, totaling 349 minutes( or six hours) of instructional time each week, totaling just over 400 hours of instruction by the end of the trimesterThings get a little more complicated going into the second trimester, where there are a total of 60 days of school, 47 full, and 13 early release, however, the second trimester also has an extra five-day week built in to handle any potential weather situation.
This year there were eight snow days, two late starts, and seven advisory days during the second trimester, fully removing that built-in week and leaving students with just 316 hours of instruction for the trimester.
“ASB proposes that we change our last two early release days to full days. This would give us 325.5 hours so we would only need a few more hours to make up to get us to 330,” Windwood said.
Those early release days would be Feb. 28 and March 6.
ASB proposed that the remaining hours for the second trimester be made up by making March 8 a full day of school rather than being a teacher work day. In doing so March 8 would mark the end of the trimester. The teacher work day would be moved to March 11, with the start of the third trimester beginning March 12.
“If we do this we will be able to get to a total of 331.6 hours for the second trimester,” Windwood said.
ASB concluded that by the end of the third trimester, students would have 345 hours of instructional time for the trimester and a total of 1018. 2 hours by the end of the school year.
“By following this plan we are meeting all of our trimester goals as well as our yearly goals,” Windwood said.
Early Releases Taken Away
Despite the input from the High School students, the board went ahead and unanimously voted for the school schedule it came up with, which does take early release away from high school students for the remainder of the school year.
Superintendent Carolyn Bernal
“This was a very tough decision, that I can assure you, was not made lightly,” North Wasco School District Superintendent Dr. Carolyn Bernal said in an email on Feb. 29.
“Unfortunately, the snow storms and subsequent delays/closures this January made it necessary to update our school calendars to ensure our required instructional hours are met for the year. After review, TDHS was the only school that required making up instructional time,” Bernal said.
Bernal also noted that High Schools have more required instructional hours than middle and elementary schools.
The calendar changes that were proposed at the February board meeting were based on many factors, including staff and teacher contracts, the amount of time spent in each trimester (for the sake of grading and classwork), high school graduation, and the end of the school year according to Bernal.
Timing of student proposal
“Timing was also a significant consideration to give families as much notice as possible. Myself, and other district administrators, met with both our Licensed and ESP Unions, our High School Principal, and our Board Chair and Vice Chair to discuss and weigh the pros and cons of these changes,” Bernal said.
Unfortunately, the presentation by the students was not received before the meeting for the board to consider. All School Board members are presented with a board packet a week before the meetings with information received relating to agenda items.
While there was no open discussion during the meeting regarding the new schedule or the proposed schedule, the board had already had time to consider the agenda item.
“We do want to commend our High School students for speaking and applaud the hard work that they put into their presentation,” Bernal said. “The reasoning given by students was a huge factor in aligning our early release days across the district this school year.”
Bernal said she plans on personally meeting with the students who presented to talk with them about this decision, answer any questions they may have, and thank them for their presentation.
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