Four-day week school plan OK'd in Santa Rosa

SANTA ROSA — The Santa Rosa Consolidated Schools board on May 28 approved a calendar consisting of four-day weeks next school year. This was amid the confusion over a state mandate of five-day weeks.

Earlier this month, a judge issued a preliminary injunction stopping Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s order for five-day weeks. More than 50 districts, many of them rural, sued the state over the mandate.

In an email to The Communicator, Superintendent Martin Madrid said the district had prepared both four- and five-day week calendars.

“Due to the current injunction, the board decided to proceed with and adopt the 4-day calendar and not the 5-day calendar because our budget is due this week,” Madrid said.

The school district sought feedback from staff about what type of Monday-through-Thursday calendar they wanted. Of the 70 survey respondents, 55% supported the calendar that the board ultimately approved, Madrid said.

The calendar includes three more professional development days for teachers – a state mandate. Rather than scheduling the days at the beginning or end of the year, the staff backed holding the training on Fridays for three weeks in December, Madrid said.

Students will get two five-day weeks under the calendar – one in October and the other in March. The Fridays of those weeks are parent-teacher conferences.

“But the students will be in school. They will be student-led parent-teacher conferences,” Madrid said. “That teaches kids to explain their own progress and data.”

With the new calendar, officials sought to avoid two- or three-day weeks for students.

“Some of the parent complaints I’ve heard are that four-day weeks turn into three,” he said. “Sometimes, if we have a holiday and in-service, it turns into a two-day week.”

Previously, the school board unanimously voted to support the lawsuit against the five-day rule. But in April, a 3-2 majority decided against joining.

The reversal was intended to avoid losing $300,000 in state incentives that would come with adopting a five-day week.

“That’s a few more teaching positions,” Madrid said at the time.

Districts that hold longer days four days a week say they save taxpayers’ money doing so.