Students at Riverside Brookfield High School may be able to sleep 30 minutes later in the morning one day a week during the upcoming school year. Monday night at a special meeting, the District 208 school board gave the OK for the administration to implement, pending approval from the teachers union, a plan that would have teachers come in early one day a week to meet for an hour among themselves as part of the professional learning community (PLC) model RB is hoping to implement during the upcoming school year.
One day each week, tentatively scheduled for Thursday, students would not have to come to school until 8:30 a.m. instead of the usual 8 a.m. starting time. The class schedule on that day would be cut by 30 minutes to make up for the lost time. Each class period that day would be cut by 4-6 minutes.
While the students slept in, teachers on that day would meet from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. to collaborate and to implement aspects of the PLC which involves collaborative teams and creating common assessments among other goals.
“One of the hearts of that concept is that people have collaborative time during the week,” Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann told the board. “This is a way to get teachers to learn from one another and to collaborate together.”
Teachers at RB are contractually obligated to be at school from 7:45 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. Baldermann said he believes the teachers union will have to approve the requirement of teachers being at school by 7:30 a.m. one day a week. Teachers would be given no compensatory time off for the extra 15 minutes a week they would be required to be at school.
Laura Hruska was the only school board member who objected to the plan. Hruska argued that no student instruction time should be cut and teachers should collaborate without reducing instructional time.
“We have the shortest [school] day in the industrial world,” said Hruska. “I don’t understand why we can’t do this without cutting into instructional time. For me this is egregious to take time out of the classroom day. To cut into the kids’ time is incomprehensible to me.”
But the other board members felt the trade off in time would be worth it and gave Baldermann the OK to present the plan to the teachers union. They felt the gains from collaboration would outweigh the lost 30 minutes of instructional time.
“We might lose a little bit of quantity, but I’m hoping we’ll see an increase in quality,” said board Vice President Sue Kleinmeyer.
Board member MariAnn Leibrandt also expressed high hopes for the plan.
“I think this is a great idea,” said Leibrandt. “I think it would refresh and rejuvenate everybody.”
The teachers union will probably discuss the proposal when the teachers return to school for an institute day on Aug. 17. The first day of the school year for students is Aug. 20. If the union approves the plan, the board will probably vote formally to approve the schedule change at their regular meeting on Aug. 28, and it would probably be implemented soon after that date.
In other action Monday night, the board unanimously approved four more contracts relating to RB’s ongoing renovation and expansion project.
A roofing contract worth $147,341 for the first phase of the project was awarded to Riddiford Roofing Inc. A building automation systems contract for all phases of the project, worth $619,500, was awarded to Johnson Controls. A flooring contract, mostly for tile in the first phase of the project, worth $97,347, was awarded to Kingston Tile Company. And a painting contract for the first phase of the contract, worth $50,767, was awarded to Ruffalo Painting Company.
All the contracts were the result of competitive bidding and were awarded to the low bidder.
“By and large, all of our contracts, to this point, have been below estimates,” said Pat Sumrow who is acting as RB’s owner’s representative on the project.
