Starting this fall, Park City High School freshmen will walk the halls on the first day of school without sophomores, juniors or seniors in their midst. The Park City School District Board of Education approved the change during a May 19 meeting.
Superintendent Lyndsay Huntsman said freshman year is a make-or-break part of a student’s educational trajectory. So, district and high school leaders wanted to provide time for the students to explore their new environment.
“The building can be quite scary as you transition from eighth to ninth grade,” she said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” May 21. “We really just want all hands on deck, so our freshmen feel safe and strategically positioned to have a successful first year of high school.”
Many other Utah schools do the same for their freshmen, including Wasatch High School.
Huntsman said students will arrive at the usual start time — 7:30 a.m. — but won’t go to regular classes. Instead, there will be meet-and-greets with teachers and orientation sessions for the newcomers on grading, attendance and behavior expectations. They will also get to roam the school to find their classrooms.
Kindergarten through ninth graders’ first day of school will be August 19 and 10th through 12th graders will start August 20.
The district is considering another schedule change: adjusting Friday release times for the middle and elementary schools. The school day would end 20 minutes earlier for the four elementaries on Fridays, and Ecker Hill Middle School students would get out of class 35 minutes earlier.
Huntsman said the change would support bus drivers, who need 40 minutes between elementary, middle and high school end times to get to each school. It also gives teachers more preparation time.
“As we held listening tours with my executive leadership team this spring, a consistent theme arose at each building: teachers and staff need more time,” she said.
The board is interested in the change, but President Meredith Reed said they wanted more community feedback before making it official.
“We just wanted to give our parents a little more notice on that because it was a change for elementary school kids,” she said. “Older kids can flex a little bit more easily with changes like that, but it's a little more challenging for our parents.”
The district is creating a parent survey to gather feedback on earlier Friday release times. The decision will be before the board in June.
