Shorter school year wouldn’t be all bad
December 1, 2011
By Contributor
Gov. Christine Gregoire has floated a couple of ideas to deal with the state’s budget crisis. One of those is a half-penny-per-dollar increase to the sales tax, to go before voters in March. First, legislators would have to approve the ballot measure. The new revenue would be targeted for education.
Another idea to help local school districts deal with looming budget cuts would be for the state to reduce the required number of school days per year. We like the idea, although we acknowledge that it could be a burden for working parents who have to pay for more childcare.
State law currently requires students to have no less than 180 separate school days.
But take a closer look. Another state law requires districts to provide at least 1,000 hours of instruction time for students in grades one through 12 and at least 450 hours for kindergarteners.
Gregoire’s proposal to drop the 180 days per year down to 176 days would not reduce the average total hour requirement.
It shouldn’t be that hard to squeeze 1,000 hours into four fewer days. Let’s do the math. Divide 1,000 hours by 180 days and you average 5.55 hours per day. With 176 days, the average day is 5.68. That’s an increase of eight minutes per day.
The Issaquah and Renton school districts already bus kids to school for a half-day at the end of the school year in June. That should be the first day to drop.
The advantage is the savings in utilities, transportation, and wear and tear on facilities. There could also be salary savings in some support staff, from the lunchroom cooks to the front office.
Whether or not the Legislature agrees to ask voters for a sales tax increase to support education funding — and the voters say yes — it might be time to also consider alternatives to the 180 school days per year.
Smaller class sizes and quality education are the priority, not the number of days students get on the bus.
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