Delayed School Opening Wednesday

By the Salem School District - SAU 57

For 2012-2013 the school district has scheduled five dates when the start to the school day will be delayed by 90 minutes.  This means that students should plan to arrive at school 90 minutes later than the normal time. The first date is Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012.  However, described below is an opportunity to help alleviate parent inconvenience.

The delayed openings come as a result of initiatives that require all teachers to meet together with administrators to formulate consistent learning expectations for students and consistent instructional and assessment practices in the classroom. You might wonder why this doesn’t simply happen naturally.  By scheduling delayed openings, we capture our entire staff for a set time period to discuss important district work. When scheduling such opportunities for the end of the day, we lose some staff members to other obligations, thereby creating other challenges.

For example, district staff recently began working with a Dover based company, Measured Progress, a company that designs the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) that our grades three through eight and high school junior students take annually.  The company is guiding teachers through the development of classroom assessments intended to give students and teachers a clearer understanding of academic progress. This isn’t an uncomplicated effort.

The delayed openings provide a consistent time for teachers at all levels to come together and discuss this work. We can bring together all district second grade teachers; all middle school math teachers; and all of the Humanities Department at the high school – whatever groups need to meet to develop understanding and help achieve consistency.  The choice of delayed openings is an alternative to early dismissal, which school districts around us have used for many years.  Since parents already are expected to plan for possible ninety minute inclement weather delays, we anticipate that delayed openings will be somewhat less inconvenient; and will be ninety minutes versus the three hours of an early dismissal.  We know there will be challenges, but we anticipate the late arrival will be less inconvenient than dismissing students at noon.

The calendar is set for next year. If we learn that early dismissals would be preferred, then we can make necessary changes when we consider a calendar for the 2013-2014 school year. However, the work that’s done during such times is critical to advancing our advancement as a school district.

In order to help minimize the inconveniences we are working with the company that already provides before and after school care in four of our elementary schools to provide child care for students in all six elementary schools.  There is a cost associated with this, but we feel it’s most cost effective for the convenience it provides. A separate letter from Maura Palmer, Assistant Superintendent, explains this opportunity.  Her letter will be sent home with each elementary school student, will be available on our web site, and also is available through each elementary school office.

The start of the school day will be delayed 90 minutes on each of the following dates:

Wednesday, September 26

Wednesday, October 24

Wednesday, December 12

Wednesday, February 13

Wednesday, April 10