LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio will continue his administration’s pursuit of adding instructional dates at Kentucky’s largest school district.
The Jefferson County Board of Education heard an update Tuesday on various changes that could come to JCPS as soon as the 2021-22 school year.
Adding school days to the calendar is among options Pollio wants the board to consider as JCPS looks to help students who may have fallen behind academically while learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The district’s Calendar Committee declined to offer a recommendation April 12 on a proposal to add four instructional days in 2021-22 at a cost of $4.5 million per day with federal stimulus money.
“More instructional days help mitigate learning loss, particularly with students of color, and I will be sharing some of that research with you,” Pollio told the board.
“So I think this is critical in our work as we move forward that we have serious discussions, and yes, it will come with a lot of pushback.”
That’s just one way Pollio hopes to spend the millions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief money received by JCPS. He told the board that the district is still developing plans for how to use all the stimulus funding it received from Washington.
“I think we’re going to have to take an advantage we won’t have again in our careers,” he said. “... We have to be very innovative in our approaches so that we don't look back four years from now and say we should have done something else that was more impactful for our kids.”
But getting more instructional dates will take some convincing. Representatives of teacher and support staff unions on the JCPS Calendar Committee said their members overwhelmingly opposed adding four school days to the 2021-22 calendar in response to internal surveys.
The school board can act independent of any recommendation from the Calendar Committee, and some members said they wanted to hear more information from Pollio on the subject before deciding.
“It’s going to be hard for me to vote no on it if it makes that big of a difference for kids, especially the most disadvantaged kids,” said Chris Kolb, the board’s vice chairperson who represents District 2.
Others on the board expressed support for the move.
“I think it’s beyond time for us to make a lot of changes there whether it’s extending calendar days and also moving around those start times,” said board member Joe Marshall, who represents District 4.
Pollio also suggested adjusting school starting times in the future, saying students would benefit academically and behaviorally by getting more sleep.
"Probably the number one thing I hear when I go into middle and high schools over the past couple of weeks is how early they're having to get up," he said.
He did not offer a detailed plan for how school start times might change, though he stressed his belief that the district should move away from a system where elementary schools start at one time and middle and high schools start at another.
The earliest time a JCPS student must be at the bus stop is 5:39 a.m., and more than 13,500 middle and high school students would need to be at stops before 6:45 a.m. under normal circumstances. The district is currently operating on a hybrid learning schedule because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A middle school student told Pollio this week that she cannot fall asleep before 11 p.m., he said.
“That is an epidemic in our nation right now with our adolescents, and it is impacting attendance and achievement,” Pollio said.
Some board members said they were ready to look at changing school start times at JCPS.
“I’m ready to do it,” said board member James Craig, who represents District 3.
“Starts times are an absolute must for me,” Kolb said. “It’s something that we’ve been kicking around for a while, and I’m glad we’re at the point where we can get serious about it.”
Pollio said his administration is looking at various options for changing school start times for the board’s consideration.
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