Meadow Heights considers four-day school week

Meadow Heights School District officials are considering whether a four-day school week could be a boon to students and the district’s finances.

Meadow Heights superintendent John Wiggans announced the proposal in a newsletter this week, saying it could save the district money.

“First of all, we’re not really looking at this because we’re an unhealthy district and we’re insolvent. We actually have a decent reserve balance,” Wiggans said during a phone interview Thursday. “What we’re looking at is trying to be very proactive so we can continue to have the funds to reinvest in teacher training, technology, maintaining bulidings and grounds and trying to be innovative in our programs for our students.”

The proposal, which is just an idea at this point, would implement a Tuesday-to-Friday class schedule, with Mondays being used for staff development, tutoring and enrichment activities.

“The school year would consist of 146 days of attendance from 8:05 a.m. to 3:50 p.m., totaling 1,088 hours of annual instruction,” Wiggans explained in the newsletter.

He said the district is exploring the idea to get out ahead of proposed state legislation that may affect school funding.

Voucher systems, open enrollment and — to a lesser degree — the expansion of charter schools are all things Wiggans said could result in fewer funds for the Meadow Heights K-12 district.

The four-day model is something he’s seen work in the past during his time as superintendent of the Stet School District, a rural district in northeast Missouri of about 60 students total, Wiggans said.

“We were the second [school] district in the state to go to the four-day model,” he said.

That school district has closed after simply becoming too small, but the schedule shift got results, he said.

“The experience we had was very good. Attendance increased; we actually had some initial rises in test scores,” Wiggans said.

Still, he said he understands opinions differ on the subject.

Wiggans said the district plans to announce several public hearings during the next school board meeting in February and eventually send out a survey if need be.

“It’s something we wanted to kind of get in the hands of the community so they can start talking about it,” he said. “We’re also looking at the possibility of running a tax levy, so we’ve got a few different measures on the table that are up for discussion.”

“We may end up totally pursuing the tax levy increase and drop the four-day,” Wiggans said. “We might end up dropping both discussions and say, ‘We are a solvent district. We’re just going to hold back on the spending model.’... I would imagine by April we should know exactly what direction we’re heading.”

He said adopting the four-day week likely would save the district $110,000 to $120,000 per year.

“On a $5.2 million budget, $100,000 isn’t great, but it certainly is a help,” he said.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573)388-3627

Pertinent address:

Meadow Heights School District, Patton, Mo.