Northern Lehigh School District has approved next year’s school calendar despite some apprehensions expressed by a parent.

Katja Bender asked the board to make some considerations before passing the district calendar for next school year.

“This school year was the first time in many years that I’ve noticed that we had an awful lot of random virtual, or in-service, or holidays very much peppered throughout the year so that there was a very inconsistent amount of five-day week stretches,” Bender said. “In fact, we only had two stretches that were four weeks in length this school year, and one five-week stretch.”

Bender said this does not include closures or virtual days for inclement weather.

“Children thrive on consistency and routine, and constantly having them go to school for a four-day week and then two five-day weeks and then three four-day weeks and then another five-day week, it creates a lot of interruption in their general routine,” she said.

Bender said she realizes a virtual day is considered a school day “but everyone is also aware that children sleep much later on a virtual day. This is going to disrupt their regular routine.

“In next year’s calendar, from the beginning of November through the end of April, there’s not a single stretch that is more than three weeks long of five-day weeks,” she said. “When we add into this the possibility for inclement weather, it becomes even less of a guarantee as we have seen this year.”

Four-day weeks

Bender said that February and March, for example, have consistent areas where there is a virtual day or a holiday followed by one week of five-day followed by another week of four-day, and noted they are currently in one this year, and she sees it coming up again next year.

She noted that students have the virtual day on Friday, and they will now go for another four-day week this week, a four-day week next week, and then they’re suddenly back to five-day weeks.

“I’m not suggesting that we remove days off or in-service days or Virtual Days that are scheduled,” she said. “I am suggesting that we work on trying to combine these at the beginning or the end of a scheduled holiday break so that we aren’t constantly switching the schedule.”

Bender said she also understands there’s only a certain amount of weeks that children can go to school and still be actively engaged and paying attention.

“Five weeks seems like an acceptable amount of time, even four weeks, but the concept of one week here or one week there is extremely disruptive to there schedule.”

Bender also pointed out there are no early dismissal times listed at the end of the calendar, and while there are school start times and school end times, there are early dismissal days listed but what those times for what building actually are are not there, and it would be extremely helpful to the community and parents if those were somewhere where they could be easily accessed.

She said there’s an inconsistency with the hours for Peters Elementary School with the school handbook and the calendar, as the school handbook states that dismissal begins at 3:10 p.m. at Peters Elementary School while the calendar states the dismissal is at 3:20 p.m.

“These are 10-minutes differences that theoretically shouldn’t be a big deal, but when you consider that students are only getting 20 minutes of recess, yet we’re ending the school day 10 minutes earlier than stated on the calendar, this seems kind of confusing,” she said. “We could be adding those 20 minutes to their recess time to increase their ability to retain information throughout the school year instead of ending the school day early, or we should adjust the calendar to reflect the hours that they’re actually attending.”

Teacher days

Board President Mathias Green said they went over the calendar in depth.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tania Stoker said students have to come for 180 days, or they have to hit the instructional hours, and that by contract, their teachers have to be here for 190 days.

“We work in conjunction not just with families and faculty and all of the contracts that we have to meet in our district, but we also largely try to work within the LCTI community,” Stoker said. “So our calendars coincide with other school districts as well, so some of those professional development days that are in our calendar are on those particular days because we want to make sure that LCTI is also open and can meet most of the kids at the same time rather than one school closing and another school closing at different times,” Stoker said. “So we do base the calendar on a lot of that data and a lot of that input.”

Stoker said the district appreciates the feedback.

“So we hear what you’re saying, but just understand that there’s a lot that comes into this and a lot of variables as well when we try to plan that out,” she said. “So we appreciate that feedback from a parent perspective, but again there’s a lot that goes into building that calendar.”

Director Angela Williams asked about the 10-minute difference.

“When we do the building instructional hours, that’s completely based on instructional time, it does not include recess time, it does not include transition times, it’s based just on instructional hours that happen during the day,” Stoker said. “When we look at how many hours occurred throughout the day, then we subtract for early dismissals and things of that nature, but the numbers that you’re seeing reflected on here, that’s what that’s based on.”