Community forum held for four day discussion.

A forum held last Wednesday gave community members a chance to hear first-hand from Clarke administrators about the proposed four-day school week.

Clarke Superintendent Kurt DeVore welcomed those in attendance and explained the purpose of the evening was to gather feedback from the community and to answer questions.

“It’s to talk about, could this work here? Is this something that would work for Osceola, for our Clarke Community School District… it’s information gathering, it’s getting feedback,” he said.

A short slideshow was presented to the audience to share the thoughts behind a four-day week and how it would work.

The “why”

As to the why, DeVore restated sentiments from earlier school board meetings about the need for high-quality teacher recruitment and retention.

“That teacher crisis that we hear about… the teacher shortages, we live that every single day,” he said.

He spoke about the lack of applicants for open positions and the need to be innovative in attracting teachers, something a four-day week could do. This school year in Iowa, 27 schools are operating on a four-day week, including nearby Murray, East Union and Central Decatur.

Along with attracting new teachers, the need to keep those who are presently employed with the school district is important.

“We want our best teachers staying here in Osceola,” DeVore said. “This could be an option - we don’t want them to go elsewhere.”

Three years

If the school board decides to make the switch to a four-day school week, it would operate on a three year pilot program. During those three years, tracking would be done on student growth to see if test scores and grades improved or remained steady; see if there was a decrease in student and staff absences; and seeing if all open teaching positions are being filled.

“When you’re tired and you’re worn down, you get sick. And then you’re out. We don’t have our top-quality teachers in the room, we have a sub coming in,” DeVore said, noting the school does have quality substitutes.

The school board will review data on an annual basis to make sure the four-day schedule is working for all.

Same v. different

Iowa code requires that public schools meet either 1,080 instructional hours or 180 instructional days; Clarke follows instructional hours. In a four-day week, the same minimum requirement of hours would be met.

The school would still focus on each child overall - their academic,