As the Lewis-Palmer School District 38 leadership team strives to address inequities in staff compensation, one potential strategy to value and retain staff is exploring options and adjustments within the school year calendar, to include a possible 4-day school week. To identify initial perceptions, district leadership conducted a pulse survey designed to gather preliminary feedback from staff, families and students.
“I think it’s fair to say that one of the byproducts of continuing to try to be competitive in a very competitive marketplace without the necessary revenue to close our compensation gap among surrounding districts, is that we have to look at how we allocate and structure time. Exploring a 4-day school week is something we have consistently heard as desirable from our team,” said KC Somers, D38 Superintendent.
More than 2,250 families, students and staff participated in the December survey designed to gather initial feedback on potential changes, with respondents ultimately signaling an openness to change on a number of key issues, including on the topic of a 4-day school week.
After administering the survey, D38 leadership, including Assistant Superintendent Amber Whetstine, walked through the preliminary results of the survey at the Dec. 12 Board of Education meeting.
“We had a lengthy discussion at the November Work Session to determine a survey format and process,” Whetstine said. “This survey was meant to be a cursory look at what the appetite for change may be within our current calendar structure.”
The survey launched on December 1, following a community input meeting during which community members, staff and families provided input on the questions surrounding the calendar survey. By December 9, more than 1,443 parents/guardians, 332 staff members, 181 staff members who are also parents/guardians and 288 students completed the survey.
“There was overall satisfaction with the current calendar structure that D38 operates with, but there was significant openness to change,” Whetstine said.
Notably, the survey results showed significant support for full-day professional learning days as opposed to late start days. Respondents also showed broad support for closing D38 offices during breaks, keeping the full-week Thanksgiving break, and keeping longer school days versus a longer school year.
There was also non-support for several survey topics, including opposition to an extended school-year calendar with longer breaks throughout the year, non-concern with aligning the D38 calendar with neighboring districts, and opposition to expanding the current 2-day fall break into a full-week break.
Ultimately, Whetstine dove into the results around the 4-day week question, noting more than 1,300 participants responded favorably to a potential 4-day week, compared to just over 600 unsupportive responses and just over 330 undecided participants. Broken out by population, more than 52% of parents/guardians, 76% of staff and 69% of students found a 4-day week favorable.
Discussion around the potential shift centered around whether or not the move was reactionary to the failure of ballot issue 4A, which would have increased district budgets through increased local taxpayer support. According to D38 leadership, the main priority of the shift would be to recruit and retain staff.
Board of Education President Chris Taylor said his first concern was for student learning, and he stressed that any potential move should not shortchange students in terms of learning time. Taylor also noted detailed feedback, including one public comment, that outlines concerns about the 4-day week from families with younger students.
“Anecdotally, what we’ve heard is that there is a favorable reception from a staff perspective on moving in this direction. While that is something we want to note, we want to make sure we are not doing this in isolation from the ripple effects to families, and to students,” Somers said. “Those have to be important aspects of this next phase. We would want to move purposefully, responsively in terms of potential pros and cons and all of the variables associated therein.”
After digesting the results, members of the Board of Education challenged district leadership to explore all options, while ultimately giving a green light to conduct additional research on a 4-day week.
“Ultimately, we will embark on a research and development process, with steps including examining similar 4-day calendar models, conducting additional surveys and input sessions as needed, involving all potential stakeholders and identifying possible impacts, both positive and negative, to identify potential solutions,” Whetstine said.
District leadership committed to publishing the full results of the survey as soon as results stop coming in and responses are fully reviewed.