Pe Ell School Distict principal Brandon Pontius.
Hallway in Pe Ell School.
Pe Ell School District principal Brandon Pontius.
Pe Ell School.
Pe Ell students eat lunch on Tuesday afternoon.
The Pe Ell School District has been on a 4-day week schedule since the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year and Principal Brandon Pontius said student attendance has improved and teachers have had more time for professional development.
There are six schools in Washington that are on the 4-day week schedule and each of them had to apply for the change through the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). The 4-day week is only available to school districts composed of 500 or fewer students.
The state requires a minimum of 1,027 hours of school time for students per year and Pe Ell is at 1,043 hours in 150 calendar days. Pe Ell School District is on a three-year agreement with the state for the four-day week schedule before they have to reapply, however, Pontius said the OSPI or the school board can end the agreement at any time if they don’t feel the needs of the students are being met.
“We wanted to stabilize the calendar. We got rid of all the half-days because we didn’t feel like we were utilizing the professional development time well. So, as the principal, that’s the number one reason why I went after the 4-day week. Now we have triple the professional development time that we can use,” said Pontius.
Staff participates in professional development one Friday per month. Some of the topics the teachers focus on during professional development days are social and emotional learning, character development, special education, and learning assessment programs. The school has also had guest speakers come in and talk to teachers such as the director from Cascade Mental Health who spoke about student safety.
“Teachers have more time to plan lessons and they have more time to spend with family and that sort of thing. Staff attendance is way higher, 40 to 50 percent higher. Student attendance has also gone up,” said Pontius.
Pontius said that approximately 25 percent of the teaching staff will be retiring in the near future so one of Pe Ell’s main goals when switching to a 4-day week is teacher recruitment.
“It’s tougher to get staff in the rural areas so that’s a big reason,” said Pontius.
In order to compensate for having Fridays off, the school day was lengthened by 45 minutes and 20 half-days were removed from the school calendar. Snow days have been added into the calendar on Fridays as well as 16 “enrichment days” which include activities such as going to the pumpkin patch, swimming, and basketball camp. Pontius said that they’ve held seven enrichment days so far this school year and had 254 students participate. Most of the money that is saved by cutting back to 4 days a week goes back into enrichment days or afterschool programs, Pontius said.
Dawna Robinson, a history teacher at Pe Ell said that she sees the benefit of the 4-day week in longer class periods, which allows her to go more in depth with the class material. She said her students seem more engaged and she has seen less absences.
Pe Ell student Joey McCalden plays football and said that one thing he likes about the new schedule is that since the football games are on Friday he is not as tired before and does not feel rushed the way he did when games were afterschool.
“The overall demeanor of the kids and staff and, from what I’ve heard, the community has been positive. More instructional time, better attendance, staff is being taught by qualified people and there are less subs in the classroom. It’s been good,” said Pontius. “And if there are negatives I would like to hear about it,” he continued.
