After six months of research and recommendations from the District Leadership and Principal Teams, the Board of Trustees of Fremont County Joint School District voted to adopt a four-day week calendar for the 2023-2024 school year. Here are some of the features of the approved calendar:
- Four-day weeks starting on August 21 with students.
- Two week harvest break (this could be split between north and south if needed).
- One designated teacher work day each month (noted in blue).
- Three scheduled inservice days (noted in red).
- Parent teacher conferences (orange) will be held either Thursday evening (4:00-8:00) and Friday (8:00-12:00) or all day Friday (8:00 am-4:00 pm) as determined by each school. The spring conferences are split between elementary and secondary schools. Elementary will have PTC on March 8. Secondary will have PTC on March 22.
- The last day of school will be Thursday, June 6.
Building principals have been tasked with developing new daily bell schedules that will ensure that their schools meet the number of instructional hours required by State. We earlier calculated that schools would need to add approximately 20 minutes of instructional time each day. Once these final schedules are set and verified with transportation and human resources, the schools will post copies on their websites.
During the next few months, the district will also need to review our policies (e.g., attendance, etc.) and make any changes that might be needed to accommodate the four-day week.
The Decision Process
During the past six months, the District Leadership Team (consisting of teachers and administrators from each building and other program representatives) has explored numerous calendar options. We looked into schedules similar to neighboring districts (e.g., Sugar-Salem, Bonneville, Jefferson, West Jefferson, Madison, etc.) and considered research on various schedules. The principals met and calculated the best number of minutes to add to meet state requirements for all schools and still allow for buses to run and a little flexibility for emergency/snow closures. Ultimately, the Leadership Team narrowed the list of calendar options to five different calendars. Two of these were five-day options; three were four-day options. These were sent to a calendar committee, consisting of teacher representatives from each school and district HR personnel. This committee solicited feedback from teachers and narrowed the list to three calendars: (1) a five-day week, (2) a four-day week with one week harvest, and (3) a four-day week with two week harvest. The staff and parents were both surveyed with respect to these three calendars. The survey results are as follows:
STAFF: 253 Responses
5 Day---23%
4 Day (1 week harvest)---35%
4 Day (2 week harvest)---38%
No Opinion---4%
PARENTS: 1014 Responses
5 Day---21.79%
4 Day (1 week harvest)---44.38%
4 Day (2 week harvest)---33.83%
After reviewing these results in Principal Meeting on Monday, February 13, the administrators recommended that the Board adopt a four-day calendar, but they did not have a preference for either the one or two week harvest option.
Immediately following the Principal Meeting, the District Leadership Team reviewed the survey results and made the same recommendation to adopt a four-day week.
Finally, the Board was presented with the surveys and recommendations from the principals and the District Leadership Team. The Board moved to adopt the four-day week calendar with the two week harvest.
During the upcoming school year, the District will monitor the calendar and will look into other options and/or modifications if necessary.