Smart Innovation Useful Regionwide

Never underestimate the power of grass-roots passion in the public schools.

A year and a half ago, the Moran Prairie Site Council, made up of parents, teachers and administrators of the South Hill elementary school, tackled a big mission: improving student learning. The council wound up devising a new school calendar certain to do just that. It eliminates the school’s dreaded eight early release days.

Parents and teachers at Moran Prairie realized professional planning days seriously detract from learning. After thoroughly researching the issues, the council devised a solution through which everybody wins. Starting next semester, a school year’s eight problematic early release days become just three full-release days. The other five will be regular school days.

Parents win because the eight half-days, so difficult to schedule into dual-earners’ weekly routines - have been eliminated. Gone for many will be the scramble for two extra hours of nonexistent child care. Instead, each full release day will be a Monday, Tuesday or Friday, creating three new three- or four-day weekends. Suddenly, opportunities will open to families for more-manageable child care arrangements and for new time together. Teachers win because they’ll no longer spend four hours with restless, eyes-on-the-clock kids before they get down to planning. The three full days also will be ideal for intense collaboration with other staff members.

Best of all, students win. Nobody thrives better under a routine than an elementary school-age child. When a kid’s routine is interrupted, learning plummets. Now, eight distracting days will be replaced with a schedule that offers more consistency. For children, that translates into security - a necessary base for achievement.

This new plan emerged because the grownups behind it moved past voicing whiny, individual complaints to tackling the overarching issue: student learning. By working together toward this significant common goal, they conquered one barrier after another: state law, the gifted education schedule, the busing and teaching contracts. “We tried to get people to think outside the box,” says Sarah Beyersdorf, a site council member.

The council’s creative solution should be extended to schools across District 81 and throughout the region. Students everywhere in the Inland Northwest deserve this inspired emphasis on their learning.