End classes early on Wednesdays

We still think students in Baker City schools should attend classes a full five days each week.

But we understand why the Baker School Board decided last week to keep, at least for the coming school year, the slightly shortened schedule that’s been in place the past seven years.

We agree, as Board Chair Ginger Savage put it, that parents deserve at least that measure of “continuity” as they prepare for the myriad changes the board approved this spring.

Superintendent Don Ulrey said he thinks parents, along with the board and district administrators, need more time to consider the merits of various schedules, including a full five-day week and a four-day week.

With the aforementioned changes to deal with during the past few months, board members simply “ran out of time” in their discussions of revising the schedule, Savage said.

By retaining the current schedule, the board bought itself nearly a full year to study its alternatives and to solicit opinions from parents and students.

It’s also possible — though we admit it’s not likely — that the state government’s financial woes, which prompted the school district to make all the changes, will have eased sufficiently by next spring that the board won’t even need to consider deleting one day per week from the schedule to balance the budget.

Although we, along with district officials, have described the truncated schedule as “4fi days,” to be mathematically precise it’s more like 4‚. Students are dismissed about two hours earlier than usual on one day per week.

In the past the early release day was Friday.

Savage said the board will decide next month whether to change the early release day for the school year that starts in late August.

We think Wednesday is the better choice.

The two hours lopped off the school day are supposed to be set aside for, among other things, students getting extra help from teachers.

But by curtailing classes on Friday afternoon, the district in effect lengthens the weekend. Inevitably, this entices students and parents to get an early start on their weekend plans. Savage said she is also concerned that some teachers might not be readily available to students after the early release.

If classes ended early on Wednesday rather than Friday, we think it’s more likely that students would take advantage of the one-on-one tutorial time with teachers.