Friday, July 27, 2007

4-Day School Week?

Lancaster ISD officials have proposed a four-day school week for all children in that area, starting this fall. Superintendent Larry Lewis says he "wants students to have longer uninterrupted stretchs of class time", and it will also save the ISD a lot of money; he insists however, that the proposal is based "primarily on academic rather than financial concerns".

Although many kids may be quite happy with this proposal, there are several concerns worth mentioning. According to Lancaster school board member Carolyn Morris, who was the ONLY ISD official to oppose the proposal, few taxpayers and parents had a chance to participate. In addition, this proposal was created two weeks ago, and the ISD admits that it has not "thought it through".

It is apparent that the ISD has not thought it through. First of all, who will supervise the kids when the parents are working their normal five-day schedule? Who will pay the daycare fees? If the ISD expects success with this proposal, not only does it need to inform its parents of this proposal in addition to its taxpayers, but it needs to allow them to have an opinion too.

Seeing that only one ISD official opposed this proposal, it makes me wonder if any of the other members were even paying attention during this meeting. But we cannot put the blame on the ISD members; Lancaster has a huge budget discrepancy, and they were only trying to find a solution. According to KVUE News, the ISD had to take out loans in at least three of the past four years in order to pay bills.

My question is: Where is the government? Are the Lancaster students not as important as any other students here in Texas? If the children's education suffers, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves for the disastrous futures of these helpless kids.

http://www.kvue.com/news/state/stories/072707kvuefourday-cb.b759bb06.html