Twin Rivers to go to 4 day school week

After much discussion, the Twin Rivers School Board voted unanimously at Thursday night’s board meeting to accept a four-day school week.

The board was presented with three calendar options that had been organized by faculty for the upcoming school year, each calendar varying in the start and stop times, as well as calendar days.

District officials think this move will help recruit and retain employees.

“Whatever we can do to retain and attract qualified candidates,” said board member Jenny Hester, who was sworn in at the beginning of last night’s meeting. “I do have concerns, but I think it is a critical time and we have to do something that is a little out of the box.”

“One of my worries is if we take and put this into effect, it has to help teacher retention. If we as a district are five days and it gets to where everyone around us is four days, I’m afraid we’re going to lose a lot of good teachers to neighboring districts,” said board member Billy Watson.

“This is going to be an incentive. If we do try it, and it is a colossal failure, can we not go back and say we tried it, it didn’t work for us,” said Hester.

The board members agreed it was something that could be changed with the next calendar year, if it was found to not be a fit for the district.

Some of the concerns mentioned at a previous meeting regarding the new four-day schedule were early start times and the possibility of some students getting on the bus before six in the morning.

“It will be dark when they leave or dark when they come home,” stated one board member.

Teachers in attendance of the meeting were unanimous in their stance that students were seemingly more compliant and teachable in the morning hours. Afternoon sports schedules were also mentioned as a concern because time added to the end of the school day would potentially lead to some students missing more curriculum to attend sporting events.

A calendar for the new school schedule has not been approved at this time.

Other topics discussed and voted on at the meeting were the current school lunch program. The board voted to return to the National School Lunch Program that was in place before COVID, since government funding has ended for the program they have had in place for the past two years.

There was a unanimous vote to approve a 2% raise on the district’s base pay of $31,250, which will result in a raise of a little over $1,200 for faculty, when added to the $610 step that was already approved.

A discussion was had about Esser funds that need to be delegated and used before they expire in September 2023.

There is around $259,000 in grant money meant to be allocated to accommodate learning loss due to COVID, according to the discussion. The board is currently debating how to utilize the funds, some of which have already been allotted for things like buses, a greenhouse and a weight room for the district.

Other areas touched on were the need for a Spanish teacher so that dual credit classes could be offered to students, the adoption of a new phone service and a unanimous vote to accept a lower bid from Metal Weld over Ozark Gas for the schools’ cylinder rentals.

The next scheduled board meeting for the Twin Rivers district is at 6 pm, Thursday, July 14.