Upbeat report card on MacCray's 4-day week

Emily Van Klampenburg's initial reaction to the prospect of attending school only four days a week was that the time off would make life easier.

It has, says the senior at MACCRAY High School, but not in the ways she imagined.

The tiny MACCRAY School District in west-central Minnesota in September became the state's first to adopt a four-day school week, dropping Mondays from its academic calendar and adding an hour to each remaining day for its 725 students. The question now is whether it will start a cost-saving revolution or go down as a temporary deserter from a time-honored tradition.

Districts in 15 other states also have truncated their calendars. They tend to be small, rural and spread out. "Farm families don't have six kids anymore," said Gary Sims, principal of MACCRAY High School.

Now some bigger, less rural Minnesota districts are considering it.

The Forest Lake School District, whose 7,000 students make it nearly 10 times the size of MACCRAY, will hold three public meetings over the next six weeks on a possible schedule change. District officials say their investigation is preliminary. "We've taken the anticipatory step to talk to the Department of Education and find out what their requirements are," said Forest Lake spokesman Ross Bennett.

The Rochester School District, with 16,000 students, charged a committee with exploring the concept and sent a school principal to Clara City (the CC in MACCRAY) to sit in on classes and speak with administrators. For now, they've tabled the possibility.

Final verdict is years off

Most agree that a final verdict on the four-day school week won't come for years because it involves the complex results of student achievement, district finances and child development.

The Minnesota Department of Education is serious about making certain that any district changing to an alternative schedule meets all of the requirements for students achievement, said Morgan Brown, assistant commissioner.

"The attempt was to provide the district with flexibility," Brown said. "We're not excusing them from their duty to make sure students are proficient."

For students in the rural school district who, like Van Klampenburg, help out on the farm, work a part-time job, participate in school sports and take college-track courses, the change has been all about managing time.

"I figured I'd have lots of free time on Mondays, but I learned that my Mondays very quickly filled up with things I didn't get done during the week," she said. "I had to learn to manage my time better."

Similarly, teachers, parents and administrators have all had to adjust their schedules to do more with less. State achievement tests have not yet been taken, but district officials, students and parents nearly uniformly say so far, so good for the new schedule.

In all, students will spend 149 days in school under the new system vs. 172 days last year; but because school days are 59 minutes longer and there are fewer lunch periods and passing times between classes, they will spend 17.6 more hours in class throughout the year.

It was a move the school district made to save $100,000 a year. That $100,000 goes a long way toward saving valuable electives, including music and Spanish, for the students and 52 teachers in the district, officials say.

MACCRAY's budgetary problems stem from a collision of demographic and economic factors. The three rural communities it serves -- Maynard, Clara City, Raymond -- are spread along a 15-mile stretch of Hwy. 23; the farms and hamlets that produce its students are dispersed even farther. The number of farms has steadily declined, and so has the number of students. And fewer students mean less funding for education.

A budget that was $7.7 million three years ago is $6.8 million now. Last year's senior graduating class included 62 students, while its kindergarten class had 39 kids.

"We don't have much to cut anymore," said Principal Sims, a spirited champion of the schedule change. Eliminating Mondays brought an immediate $65,000 reduction in transportation costs. What's more, "we've filled up the fuel tank in the school a month and a half later than we normally do. If we can get by with two refills rather than three, that can save us $20,000."

MACCRAY Mondays

Homework, part-time work, doctors' visits and errands now fill Mondays in the MACCRAY district. So much so that a local orthodontist has started calling the day "MACCRAY Monday" for all the appointments logged by students.

Families say the extra day allows them to have a full Sunday together, without homework and other workweek preparations usually previously required on Sunday afternoons.

The school's Community Education Department also schedules Monday events for kids, mostly from ages 8 to 12. Babysitting, crafts and pet care are among the programs available, said Melissa Bodin, the district's director of community education.

Teachers say the kids aren't falling behind. "We are where we're supposed to be," said third-grade teacher Gretchen Hilbrands.

It's a longer day for the 22 kids in her class, but she said they keep on track. "The schedule seems to be fine for the children," said Hilbrands, who's been teaching for 30 years. "I'm the one who's tired, because I'm old," she joked.

Gregory A. Patterson • 651-298-1546