District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton is now proposing a new plan. Instead of cutting 45 minutes out of every school day, he’s proposing to cut 90 minutes out of Wednesdays. Under this new plan, children would be dismissed at 1:45 p.m. on Wednesdays, but teachers would stay and use that time for common prep.
Let’s compare apples to apples here. Per week, this means that instead of cutting 3.75 hours from the students’ school day, they would be cutting only 1.5 hours. Per day, this means that instead of cutting 45 minutes, they would be cutting an average of 18 minutes. I suppose this is Hinton’s way of trying to meet parents halfway — in fact, 60% of the way, since he’s restoring 2.25 hours of the 3.75 he was originally planning to cut.
Granted, 18 is better than 45. But it doesn’t resolve the issue. Under this plan, we would still have kids in failing schools attending less time each week. We’d still have fifth-graders in primary schools getting 18 minutes less per day (54 hours over the course of a 180-day school year) than fifth-graders in middle schools.
It looks like Mr. Hinton is on the right track — he just needs to go the other 40% of the way.
It’s ” All or nothing ” with YOU, isn’t It C.J. Summers? What a surprise! District 150’s superintendent adhered to the parents and critics will about eliminating the 45 minutes, but THAT’S still not good enough for You. Have You no shame?
Christopher, it has nothing to do with me. It’s “still not good enough” for the students of District 150. And there is no shame in fighting for a worthy cause.
Please re add the minutes. I lost track. 1.5 or 3.75? No, is it a total of the two or is it three. geezz
end/sarcasm
Could we have a couple more people rush to defend the District’s fascist tactics? There is nothing like Democracy in action!
Bottom Line: You don’t take classroom time away from teachers and students so that the administration can save money for their fat paychecks.
Common prep time is a joke… “Let’s all teach our classes the exact same way…” right. We see how well that works.
Common coffee and complain about the administration time is more like it.
Let the teachers do their prep time on their own time… like REAL teachers do.
I can’t find the link, but this morning on 1470’s newscast Hinton was quoted as saying he would like to implement this new plan into the Middle schools as soon as next year.
The district said they could cover the budget shortfall from their little Title 1 problem by not buying busses. Going from 45 minutes a day to 90 minutes a week won’t save as much money -solution -don’t buy busses. Seems like the solution to all ills is old busses. Just wondering if cutting bus purchases was even on the Watch group’s list of suggested savings?