Streamlining of school schedules sought

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Board of Education is poised to tackle a costly and unwieldy scheduling system that finds the state's public schools operating under about a half-dozen different calendars.

Spurred by budget cuts, the BOE, unions that represent teachers and other staff and the school complexes are discussing ways to streamline the system, with an eye toward offering fewer schedule options to help minimize operating costs and maximize efficiency.

Ideally, all schools would follow one schedule. Realistically, though, officials hope to get each school complex — a high school and its feeder schools — to adopt a common schedule.

"There are a lot of financial and logistical work-efficiency advantages to having everyone on the same calendar," said Greg Knudsen, Department of Education spokesman.

Today, 111 schools begin classes operating on the traditional nine-month calendar. But the other 173 schools — more than 60 percent — follow a year-round or modified schedule. And within the year-round schedules are numerous variations.

It all adds up to an administrative nightmare over everything including deliveries, payroll and school bus routing, and costs the DOE tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, education officials said. For students and parents, the uneven calendar system means that students begin classes, take vacations and end semesters at different times of the year — an issue for families with children in different schools.

School schedules began changing more than a decade ago when school/community-based management was adopted by the BOE in an effort to shift decision-making authority to schools.

SCBM councils, made up of parents, educators, staff, students and community members, make decisions on a variety of issues. When they consider calendar changes, they choose one of three basic schedules that they then sometimes modify, but essentially they are given flexibility to decide their attendance dates.

Nationally there's a trend to switch to the year-round schedule, but Hawai'i appears to be ahead of the national average, Knudsen said.

Officials say such situations force the DOE to end up paying extra for bus service, cafeteria workers and some clerical employees when schools in the same vicinity don't have matching schedules, Knudsen said.

For instance, in the Kahuku complex, the Kahuku High cafeteria also makes meals for Kahuku Elementary students, but the high school began Aug. 21 and the lower started Aug. 18, requiring cafeteria workers to report to work earlier. The same situation affects bus schedules. And the effect builds as the year goes on.

Payroll is an even bigger problem, especially when teachers move to another school that is on a different schedule.

"Payroll is a tremendous headache for our people with everyone paid on a different schedule," Knudsen said. "It's a logistical nightmare when it comes to running the system. So either they have direct costs or they're eating into everyone's time and that adds to inefficiency or less productivity."

School board chairman Herbert Watanabe said the conflicting schedules could be costing the department plenty of money, but he won't know for sure until the department prices it out.

Any change would include discussions with teachers, principals and other employees, Watanabe said, adding that the Collective Bargaining Committee is discussing the issue.

Because SCBM councils and unions are involved, change could take a year or two, he said. But the extra costs generated by the numerous school calendars and poor state revenues require that the board seek solutions, Watanabe said.

"What we're looking at is how to manage money better and still provide some degree of flexibility for the schools," he said.

At the complex level, schools are being asked to consider selecting one of three choices for the whole complex, said Meredith Maeda, principal at Castle High School in Kane'ohe. All are modified calendar years with different break patterns, he said.

Castle remains on a traditional schedule by choice, Maeda said, explaining that fewer than 80 percent of the teachers wanted to change. Collective bargaining requires that 80 percent approve the change. "Educationally we haven't found a reason to switch," he said.

Decisions about changing the calendar should come when other changes are being considered, Maeda said. "When they start looking at the new credit requirements for graduation and the way we restructure high school, that may be an opportune time to look at the school year," he said.

Even if the majority of schools in a complex votes for a change, individual schools can still opt out, Maeda said.

"The catch is if the SCBM community doesn't want the choice they can still, by law, choose an altered school year," he said.

The varying schedules also affect students and their families. Transferring credits can be a nuisance when moving to a school that has a different system. Families that rely on older siblings to babysit may have to scramble for daycare if the students are on separate schedules.

Joe Barino, who has children in Mililani Waena and Mililani Middle schools, said the different schedules of the two campuses make it impossible to plan trips together or to make long-range plans. Arranging for baby sitters is also a problem.

Mililani Middle School's year-round calendar finds many students home alone during the three-week breaks and that is worrisome, said Sandy Bolibol, parent of a middle school sixth-grader and a first-grader.

"Here's a wide open path to go down the wrong path," Bolibol said. Sixth-graders are vulnerable, and parents have few options to occupy them on break, she said, adding that even the school is off-limits and children can't go to its library to study or read. "It's scary," Bolibol said.

Shyla LeVasseur, sophomore class president at Castle, has experienced both year-round and traditional schedules and said each has advantages. King Intermediate's year-round calendar offered regular breaks just when students were about to burn out from studies, LeVasseur said. Castle, with its traditional calendar, has long summers that she uses to volunteer at King.

"My first year at Castle I was really tired all the time because we didn't have a lot of breaks," LeVasseur said. "It was like constant week after week doing work. It was really tiring."

King Intermediate modified its calendar in the 1998-99 school year, and the results have been positive, said Cynthia Chun, principal.

The decision to change was based on minimizing learning loss over long breaks and to address behavioral issues, Chun said. Poor behavior would escalate just before a long break, she said, adding that with the modified schedule and breaks every nine weeks there's been a marked change.

"There was a decrease in referrals and a decrease in teacher absenteeism by 20 percent each year for at least four years we tracked," she said.

Students also retained more and didn't have such a hard time refocusing after a break, Chun said.

"This way just seems to make much more sense," she said. "It amazes me we didn't think of this earlier."

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.