The Park City Board of Education approved a change to the bell schedule for Treasure Mountain Junior High and Park City High School to give more time to adequately help those students learning from home. It will take effect at the start of the new marking period which is Oct 19.
Half of the Park City High School student body is learning from home due to quarantine or having chosen the remote learning option offered by the district. With COVID-19 impacts on in school attendance, teachers are managing both modes of learning and it is taking a toll.
Chief Academic Officer Amy Hunt presented the survey response data to the board. The survey asked parents and teachers to weigh in on two early release scenarios. One would shorten each school day by 45 minutes, the other would give teachers a half day on Friday afternoons, releasing students at noon.
“Eighty percent of the people, if you just don't say anything about Monday to Friday, 80% of the people say they are in favor of a Friday release. If you take this option off the table and you say the only option is Monday through Friday, then at that point, only 45% of the people are in favor, ok? And of those 45%, the majority are teachers. So, what that’s saying is most teachers are in favor of both options.”
Board Member Wendy Crossland says she interprets the data differently.
“If you took out parents, So, if it was just teachers that we had surveyed and not parents with it, the teachers would prefer Monday through Thursday over Friday early release. If we just surveyed parents, parents would prefer Friday, not Monday through Thursday, in terms of the majority.”
Early release on Monday’s is already in place with Treasure Mountain Junior High and Park City High School. In addition to keeping the Monday schedule, the Board instructed Superintendent Jill Gildea to change the school schedule for Friday beginning in the second marking period.
“So, this is a new communication which we can certainly put out but it's different than what we either let the teachers or the community know about. This would mean Mondays will remain their normal early release schedule but Friday’s shift to a half day mode. This is due to giving teachers the ability to touch base with our remote kids on Mondays and have a larger block of planning time to prepare for remote learners on Friday.”
The survey can be found on here.