There are many things that resulted from the long winter that Iowans have been experiencing: more snow, more cold weather, more cancellations of school, work, and activities. Another result of the long winter was longer school days for many schools across the Quad Cities, including PV.
For the month of March, the PV school district decided to increase the time spent at school to make-up for the time off when bitter weather swept across the Quad Cities. At PVHS, five minutes have been added to each class for Mondays through Thursday, which equates to a total of 30 minutes added to the regular school day.
While this may seem like an abnormal way to make up the days, the school administration, along with principal Mike Zimmer, had to find unique ways to get in the extra hours students had to spend at school–a minimum of 1080 hours.
The first solution was adding onto the school year. However, due to the unusual amount of days missed, pushing back summer vacation by adding extra days did not fix the problem. “The problem is if the elementary schools are meeting the hour requirement. While the high school was meeting the requirements, due to the bus schedule, elementary has the shortest days,” Zimmer said.
The buses, which pick up the junior high and high schools students first, delay the school day for elementary students. Due to this, the elementary schools are not meeting the necessary 1080 hours of school, even with the extra days added.
“[The] school board also doesn’t want students to come back on Monday, June 10; they were willing to go till June 7,” Zimmer said.
“Since we are a district, we have to function as a district, and a lot of uncomfortable choices were brought up such as going to school on Saturdays and going into spring break.” Zimmer said reiterating the fact that whatever the board decided on (to make up the school days) would affect all PV students. “They came up with [the solution of] adding 30 minutes to the school day, which equates to 40 minutes at the elementary school.”
At the high school, by adding 30 minutes –five minutes per class– to the school days on Mondays through Thursday, it satisfied the state requirement for the district as a whole. This was the most ideal solution for many reasons, one of them being that it gave AP students more instruction time.
Senior Daniela Rybarczyk, who is taking the AP Calculus exam in May, believes that adding extra time has been beneficial. “I have been learning more in classes that are more lecture based, such as AP Calculus. In that extra five minutes, I can do an extra problem or finish taking notes.”
However, not everyone is satisfied with the solution. For freshmen, the extended schedule means that their school day doesn’t end until 4:00. Freshman Corrine Johnson commented. “Ending at 4:00 is problematic because on Thursdays, I have dance class that starts at 4:00. Even the days I have dance at 5:00, I find it hard because I don’t get home until 4:20. I only have about 20 minutes at home before I have to leave.”
This problem was easily fixed however. “The schools have been flexible to meet the needs of students and families,” Zimmer said.
