Class-

By John Sena, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Feb. 5–She figured that because kids basically attend school five days a week for nine months, the number of days would addup to 180. Across the United States, a standard school year runs 180 days, although in some countries, such as Germany, kids attend school as many as 220 days.

But according to the district’s calendar, elementary-school kids are only scheduled to attend 170 days, and on Fridays they go home after lunch.

“That’s when I started being upset,” Germann said.

She talked to her District 1 school board representative,

Mary Ellen Gonzales, and Superintendent Leslie Carpenter. She was not reassured by their answers. They told her the district counts the total number of hours children are in school, not the number of days.

Sometime in the 1970s, Germann was told, the state changed the law to allow districts to spread the school year over fewer days.

The change from a strict 180 full days was a concession for rural schools that wanted to switch to four-day school weeks to save on the cost of busing children from isolated ranches.

Veronica Garcia, secretary of education for the state, said the change might also be attributed to the energy crisis of the late 1970s. It allowed schools to save on heating and other energy costs, she said.

New Mexico now requires that elementary students have 5.5 hours of instructional time per day, or a total of 990 hours per year. For secondary schools, the minimum is six hours of instruction per day or 1,080 hours per year.

Kids in Santa Fe have longer school days but attend school for fewer days than in many places. The school day for elementary-school students is 7 hours long, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., with half an hour for lunch and half an hour for recess. On Fridays, students are in school from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The schedule allows the teachers time for planning, preparation and professional development without exceeding the 182 days they are paid to work under their union-negotiated contracts.

Because teachers don’t get any prep time during the day, the district has in-service every Friday afternoon.

Santa Fe and New Mexico are not alone in varying the structure of the school year.

Denver Public Schools also measures the school year in hours, but its schedule adds up to 173.5 days, a little more than Santa Fe’s. Denver’s school year does not include half-days. When teachers have in-service days, students have the whole day off. In Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland, students are in school for 180 days, but teachers work 192 days.

Germann, as well as some principals and teachers, said lengthening the school day is not the same as more days in class.

“I think we need to be re-examining not just the hours and minutes, but the number of days,” said Janis Devoti, principal at Pinon Elementary School. “The more students are exposed to content standards and curriculum, the better.”

Brenda Dominguez, a teacher at Agua Fria Elementary School, said there is more pressure than ever to learn state standards and score well on tests, and students could benefit from more time in class.

Because of the amount of information students need to learn and the limited time to do it, Dominguez said, teachers often resort to “drive-by education,” rushing through as much content as possible.

“What the students need to be exposed to, as well as master,” Devoti said, “involves presentation and practice and being able to integrate those into real-life scenarios.”

Even Garcia, the education secretary, was surprised by the breakdown of days in Santa Fe. “Wow,” Garcia said. “That is troubling to me.”

While the law gives schools and districts some flexibility in case of events beyond their control, such as snow days or the flooding that occurred in Hatch last year, Garcia said, officials might need to explore the law further — especially, she said, if student achievement is suffering.

Some principals said, though, that teachers do a good job with the time they have.

“It’s how teachers manage their time,” said Anita Cisneros, principal at Nava Elementary. She agreed that most teachers would love to have students for more time, but if they are asked to work more days, then they have to be paid more.

They already stay late, take work home and come in early to get things done, Cisneros said. “Sometimes I have to go in at 7 p.m. and drag teachers out of here,” she said.

—–

Copyright (c) 2007, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.