The Perry County District 32 School Board spent a majority of its latest meeting on Nov. 12, looking to the future, specifically the second semester and just what it will look like. The board approved an amended 2020-2021 academic calendar that would eliminate a majority of the “flex days” on Wednesdays and added 11 days of face-to-face instruction, 44 for A-day students and 45 for B-day students starting in the second semester. Those numbers are up from 33 days of face-to-face instruction for grades 6-12. The academic calendar was amended by collaborating with a group of teachers, community members and Board members Nancy Voelker, Mary Bauwens and Ashley Geringer
Bauwens asked how the teachers took the news, as they had grown fond of the Wednesday flex days from the high school level.
“Right now it’s hard to wrap your head around it because there is so much that these teachers do,” Assistant Superintendent Jeanie White said. “It’s not about asking the teachers to do more, but what can we do so they can do less? When the teachers spend this semester planning in-school and out-of-school assignments, there’s a lot of planning going on. So how can we help the teachers and still provide the proper instruction?”
To help with that the different buildings on the campus have different plans on how to get more students in each building starting on Jan. 5 when the district returns from Christmas break.
The Primary and Elementary Schools are currently implementing a cohort system and will continue to do that five days per week. In the middle school, more than 500 students will be split into a “green” block and a “white” block. With all the kids returning, one group would do their core classes, while the other would be in their exploratory classes.
The classes would go to a 90-minute block, which actually picks up a section of instruction, which is another exploratory class.