Teachers want more early student release days

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Story Published: Feb 8, 2010 at 8:40 PM MDT

Story Updated: Feb 8, 2010 at 8:40 PM MDT

By Danica Lawrence

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BONNEVILLE COUNTY - Educators have an hour each month to work on developing their school plans, when students are allowed to go home on early release days but teachers want more. They're worried about next year, with all the new budget cuts.

Their time is already so limited.

"We need it and we would use it," says Rocky Mountain Middle School principal Sharlene French.

About 9 hours and three days, a school year, that's all the time the district allots for teacher planning. But Sharlene French wants more time for teachers to develop their school year plans.

"At Rocky Mountain Middle School our teachers would utilize more planning time, because we have several projects that we are working on as a school and it takes more than just an hour to complete it," says French.

Early release days allow teachers an extra hour or so to work on their curriculum for their students.

The problem is teacher's have much more than curriculum to collaborate on, they have new programs and new teaching tools to learn.

"There's quite a few things that are happening and we are all torn, because all of us want to be at the SIOP training, we want to hear what Arnold Duncan has to say, but we also need to attend the smart board trainings, so we're busy."

District Deputy Superintendent, Dr. Bruce Roberts understands the teacher's time constraints and worries about next year's plans. With the state's ten percent cut to education, more teacher planning time. Seems unlikely.

"We are required to have so many hours during the year. And the only way to add more early release days is to lengthen the school day and we are just not at that point yet, where we want to lengthen the day," says Deputy Superintendent Dr. Bruce Roberts.

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