NEW PALESTINE — Students attending Southern Hancock schools will be getting out of classes 30 minutes early each Wednesday starting in January 2021.
Officials with the school board approved the measure Monday, Nov. 9 after superintendent Lisa Lantrip informed the board the extra half-hour is needed for the educator prep.
It’s become clear to administrators that teachers who’ve been asked to do more, thanks to the pandemic, need more prep and evaluation time.
“They are working incredibly hard to keep instruction going through a number of changes in the school environment due to COVID-19,” Lantrip said.
In many cases, Lantrip noted, educators are teaching dual lessons to two different sets of students at the same time, those in class and virtually.
“This is the most challenging time many of us have ever experienced in education,” she said. “We need to do everything we can to assist our teachers and administrators through this pandemic.”
District officials have had internal discussions about early dismissal for some time, officials said. In its original intent, the time was to be used for teacher meetings, data analysis, and professional learning community (PLC) meetings.
Kent Gish, who represents the teachers in the district said educators are thankful to the administration for working to get them more time as everyone tries to make all the changes needed to teach virtually.
“Anyone who has begun doing work virtually knows that what was simple in person can become much more complicated virtually, so this time will help us be more effective,” Gish said.
He also noted educators understand it’s a sacrifice for parents to make adjustments due to the new Wednesday early dismissal, but teachers are truly appreciative of the support and flexibility they’ve been given and are being shown.
The Wednesday change goes into affect Jan. 6, 2021 and every Wednesday through the remainder of the school year. Students at New Palestine High School and New Palestine Junior High School will be dismissed at 1:55 p.m.
District intermediate students will get out at 2:10 each Wednesday while New Palestine Elementary and Sugar Creek Elementary will get out at 3 p.m. Brandywine Elementary will get out at 3:05 p.m.
Wes Anderson, Director of School and Community Relations said district officials will play it by ear and revisit the idea of early dismissal each Wednesday before making things official beyond the 2020-21 school year.
“We understand it’s a change, but it’s only 30 minutes one day a week,” Anderson said.
While Anderson noted most of the district schools already hold professional learning communities (PLC) on Wednesday after schools where educators talk data analysis, lesson plans and more, giving educators more time for professional learning will end up being a plus for students.
The administration is pleased with how hard the educators are working and is thinking of them and what’s required in their contracts as the basis for the decision.
“We wanted to be cognizant of the teachers’ time and the amount of time they are supposed to work through their teacher contract,” Anderson said.
A second piece of trying to help the teachers in an unprecedented type of school year that didn’t have to receive board approval, but is part of the teachers’ contract, calls for the district to hold off on reporting teacher evaluations this year.
It means results from educator evaluations will stay the same and carry over from the 2019-20 school year.
“It’s the same thing the state did with school letter grades,” Anderson said. “We’ll still do the evaluations, but their grades cannot go down.”
While educators can improve their personal grade score if they want to, but due to so many challenges surrounding the pandemic no educator will have their score go down.
“We felt like these were reasonable things our teachers requested,” Anderson said. “The evaluation process is stressful and being able to take that off their plate, goes back to this whole time thing.”
In the meantime, the district announced late Wednesday, Nov. 11, three of their schools, New Palestine Elementary, New Palestine Intermediate and New Palestine Junior High will all be going virtual immediately until Monday, Nov. 30 due to COVID-19. New Palestine High School was already put on virtual status until after Thanksgiving break. Sugar Creek Elementary and Brandywine Elementary remain open for in-person classes.
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Southern Hancock Schools Early Wednesday Only Dismissal starting January, 2021.
New Palestine High School 1:55 p.m.
New Palestine Junior High 1:55 p.m.
New Palestine Intermediate 2:10 p.m.
New Palestine Elementary 3 p.m.
Sugar Creek Elementary 3 p.m.
Brandywine Elementary 3:05 p.m.
All other school days are normal dismissal times.
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