WISD’s 4-day school week plan needs revamping

Last week the Wharton ISD Board of Trustees narrowly voted down a proposal to go to a four-day school week next year.

The plan is a good one with merit and lots of benefits. Unfortunately, it was poorly executed and failed. I don’t think the plan should be abandoned. It needs to be revamped and tried again down the road.

I believe the primary reason the vote failed is because of a fear of the unknown. Removing a day from the school week is a fundamental change and I don’t think the trustees or the community were ready for it.

It would be easy to say that the vote failed on racial lines with Curtis Evans, Fred Johnson, and Philip Henderson – who are Black – voting for it, and Sherrell Speer, Doris Teague, Ann Witt, and Miguel Santes – who are white and Hispanic – voting against. You could also say the split vote was based on age, as Speer, Teague, and Witt are senior citizens, but that doesn’t explain why Santes voted the way he did. I disregard both of those theories, so let’s examine further.

My theory is that there was not enough time given to the subject. It was proposed at the January board meeting and voted on just three weeks later at the February meeting. Three weeks is not nearly enough time to consider a significant change that impacts not only the school district, but the entire community. It felt like the proposal was being forced down the throats of the trustees.

Deputy Superintendent Denise Ware gave presentations about the benefits of the four-day week at the January and February board of trustees meetings. Both times she elaborated how the four-day week would help the district attract and retain quality teachers. She explained how it would help teachers provide better instruction while creating time to do work on Friday that they would normally do on their own time over the weekend. She made a lot of good, valid points.

Ware also said her research shows that there is little to no academic improvement in students when going to a shorter week. There are lower drop-out rates and fewer disciplinary referrals, which are good and needed, but not much to show how it will improve student performance. Her focus was on the benefits to the district, not the students.

To help answer the question about where the students will go on Fridays, representatives from Communities in Schools, Boys and Girls Club, and Just Do It Now spoke about their programs and their ability to serve more students than they currently are. This came across to me more like the solution to a baby-sitting problem than one to enhance instruction (which I know these organizations do to a degree).

At the January meeting the trustees asked that a survey be taken to see how parents feel about the four-day plan. A parent survey was hastily posted on the district’s website and only accessible to parents for a very few days. Surveys were also taken of teachers and District Educational Improvement Committee members. The results of the surveys showed significant support for the four-day plan.

What was lacking in this process was a survey of all the stakeholders in the district. Everyone who pays taxes to the district or who lives and works within the district boundary is a stakeholder. The community at large was not surveyed. Nor were the business owners and other employers who would have to consider alterations to their operations to accommodate employees who would have childcare issues each Friday.

With the plan being rushed in just three weeks, there was no effort made to sell the concept to the community. There were no community meetings. There were no presentations to civic groups and other organizations. There was no promotional campaign. Nothing was done to try and get the community’s buy-in.

I just recently finished the book “Time Smart,” in which author Ashley Whillans, a Harvard business school professor, talks about the benefits of flex time and having more time off from work and school. Armed with that knowledge, I know there are more benefits to the four-day week than what has been presented to the board of trustees.

My recommendation is for the district to regroup and switch its focus from how this plan can benefit the district to how it can benefit students and academic performance. Show us how it will improve education and lift the district out of its F ratings. Give the community a game plan it can rally around.

With a plan in place, take a few months to roll it out to the community and give the information time to sink in. Use several months and schedule community meetings. Make presentations to the movers and shakers in the various civic and community groups. Build momentum and support.

It’s too soon to make this change for the 2023-2024 school year. Target the year after that. Give the community time to absorb the information, acclimate to it, and prepare for it. We saw what a major disruption COVID was on education. At least when things shut down during COVID, parents were home, too. Now they’re back at work and need time to plan and prepare for a major change in their schedule.

Most importantly, however, the students will need to be prepared for the changes they will face and the opportunities that will be before them. They are, after all, the reason for doing any of this.

Joe Southern is the managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com.