SEQUIM — Beginning next semester, students will have to get out of bed a little earlier Mondays to make it to class on time.
During its regular meeting Monday evening, the Sequim School District Board of Directors voted to change the starting time for classes on Mondays from 9:15 a.m. to 8:15 a.m., matching it up with the rest of the week.
“Currently, we start school on Mondays one hour later than normal,” Schools Superintendent Kelly Shea said.
“Mondays will start at 8:15 a.m. like every other day of the week.”
The reason for eliminating the later start on Mondays “is because the state is now requiring that all high school students attend 1,080 hours during the school year,” Shea said.
“Our kids have been going to school 1,043 hours, and so by eliminating the late starts, we added 34 hours to kids’ instruction, which got us up to 1,077.”
The final three hours were allotted through other means, Shea said.
Financially viable
Eliminating the late starts on Mondays was the only financially viable option, he added.
The other alternative would have been to “add 13 minutes a day for 180 days a year. You would then have to compensate teachers for their time, and that would exceed our budget capacity.”
That option would have cost the district between $200,000 and $225,000 to implement, Shea said.
The school district is currently considering options to provide teachers with other opportunities for “professional development time,” which is being eliminated Monday mornings with the new start time, Shea said, although nothing concrete has been adopted yet.
Although state law only affects high school students, elementary and junior high students in the district also will have to arrive earlier Mondays beginning next year due to financial considerations.
“The elementary students only have to go to school by law [for] 1,000 hours,” Shea said.
“Right now, the Sequim School District runs one bus route,” and the bus drivers pick up “all of our kids at the same time,” Shea said.
“If we were to have the elementaries on one schedule for 1,000 hours and our high school kids on a different schedule for 1,080 hours, we would have to go back to running two bus routes, which would then almost double our fuel costs.
“We are going to keep one bus schedule, so all of our kids will be getting increased instructional hours.”
That will be beneficial for the primary students, Shea said.
“We feel that having more instructional time for our students will benefit them in terms of their learning,” he said.
Other business
In other business, the School Board adopted several new antidiscrimination measures during the meeting.
The measures bring the school district into compliance with revisions of state laws regarding discrimination in schools as required by the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
According to the state office, the purpose of the revisions is to provide a more efficient and equitable resolution of discrimination complaints for school districts, public charter schools and families.
In compliance with the revisions, the school district must “ensure that no student is denied or limited in their ability to participate on the basis of any protected class.”
The revisions also prohibit harassment, intimidation and bullying, and provide guidelines on how to offer mediation of these complaints at district expense.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
