Fox C-6 Superintendent Paul Fregeau’s recent announcement that school officials are considering the possibility of switching the district to a four-day school week to save money has garnered plenty of attention.
About 150 people attended the first of four “Community Conversations” public meetings about the topic on Feb. 26 at the Fox C-6 Service Center in Arnold. Jon Turner, an associate professor at Missouri State University in Springfield who has studied the impact of four-day school weeks presented some of his research at the meeting.
That public meeting was held after about 200 staff members attended a similar meeting in the Service Center.
At one point more than 800 people were watching the public meeting on Facebook, said Andy Waterman, the Fox district’s director of communications. People had the chance to share their thoughts, questions and concerns about a possible four-day school week through a link on the recording until March 1.
Waterman said 294 surveys were completed online. The recording of the meeting had 2,821 views as of Monday.
“I thought they (teachers) were extremely engaged, and I thought our community was extremely engaged,” Fregeau said. “There were a lot more questions than concerns, but that is from a cursory look (at the submissions).”
The Fox district held another Community Conversations meeting at the service center on Wednesday, March 6, after the Leader deadline. Independence School District Superintendent Dale Herl, whose nearly 14,000-student district switched to a four-day week this school year, was expected to discuss that district’s experience at the meeting.
The Fox district will hold two more Community Conversations – one at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, in Seckman High School’s small gym, 2800 Seckman Road, in Imperial and another at 6:30 p.m. April 4 at the service center, 849 Jeffco Blvd, in Arnold.
During those meetings, Fregeau is expected to address many of the submitted questions and concerns about a possible four-day week.
He said no decision about if and when Fox might move to a four-day week has been made, and feedback from the Community Conversations will be considered during any decisions.
If the change is made, Fox would join 168 school districts in the state, including Crystal City, Grandview R-2 and Sunrise R-9 in Jefferson County, that have four-day schedules, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“I believe looking at a four-day school week is such a big undertaking that we have to start the conversation early,” Board of Education president April Moeckel said. “It is not a done deal. We have not decided to go to four-day. We have simply invited the community to come along with us as a board to take in the information as we receive it so we can have transparency and take in their ideas and considerations as well.”
Reactions
Michael Nelson of Barnhart, who has one child in first grade and another who will begin kindergarten next school year, said he is in favor of the four-day week.
“I love it, if they do it right,” he said. “The fifth day off shouldn’t be Wednesday or something silly. My other concern would be if it would mean a longer day or year. My boys do not sit still for very long. Trying to make them sit still longer would be hard.”
Scott Stewart, a former board member who has a child at Fox High, said he worries about how a four-day week would impact student achievement.
“One of the biggest lessons we learned from the pandemic was that butts in seats matter,” said Stewart, who lives in the Arnold area.
However, DESE released a study in January that showed no statistically significant difference in academic achievement for students attending school five days versus four days.
The state requires students to attend school for a total of 1,044 hours each year, regardless whether students attend school four or five days a week.
Fox officials said the district has 1,106 1/2 instructional hours scheduled for this school year.
Matt Freeman, a Fox High School science teacher, said initially he was concerned about losing time with students if the district adopted a four-day week, but during the Feb. 26 meeting, some of his concerns were alleviated. He also said he believes a four-day week could allow for more teacher collaboration and could help attract and retain teachers.
“We have a block schedule with 90-minute class periods,” he said. “We were told nothing has been decided, but we would likely go back to having all periods every day, instead of making block schedule classes longer.”
Amanda Brown, a district parent who lives in the Arnold area, said she is not against a four-day week but is worried how it would affect her eighth grade student, who receives special education services.
“My biggest concern is how this is going to look for him. He does best with a very structured five-day-a-week schedule.”
Questioning motives
When Fregeau announced on Feb. 20 his plans to talk to the community about a four-day week, school board member Jim Chellew said he was worried about the impact it would have on students. He also said he believed the public meetings were manipulative.
Chellew, a former Fox administrator, said the four-day week meetings remind him of a series of meetings held before the district moved all sixth grade students into middle schools and changed to block scheduling at Fox and Seckman high schools.
He said those two moves at the start of the 2018-2019 school year were followed by declines in student achievement.
“Any time I see a district start pursuing something like this, especially with the energy we are pursuing it, in my mind we’re there to manipulate what the community wants to do,” Chellew said.
Fregeau pushed back on Chellew’s comments.
“I want you guys to publicly censor me if you feel like I’m manipulating this community,” he said. “I don’t ever want to be accused of that.”
On Feb. 26, Fregeau said he and other administrators who attended the first Community Conversations only answered questions and did not interfere when staff and community members wrote down their thoughts, questions and concerns about a four-day week.
“I don’t think Dr. Turner was trying to steer anything,” he said. “We are not trying to steer discussion. We are gathering information and providing as many people as possible with the opportunity to give us input as we move forward looking at options.”
Chellew also questioned why the district would consider a four-day week after the idea was put on hold last year when a bill was filed in the Missouri Senate that would require residents to vote on the matter before districts could change the school week.
The bill did not pass last year, but other similar ones have been filed in the state Senate since then that would apply to a district located either entirely or partially in charter counties or cities with more than 30,000 residents, like Jefferson County. Sen. Doug Beck, a Democrat from Affton, and state Reps. Robert Sauls, a Democrat, and Aaron McMullen, a Republican, both of Independence, filed the bills.
The bills filed by Beck and Sauls also have provisions that districts with five-day school weeks would receive an additional 2 percent in funding to be used to increase teacher salaries.
Fregeau said Fox officials estimate tha district could save between $2.5 and $3.2 million, or about 2 to 3 percent of its operating budget, if the district switches to a four-day week.
“It’s the mileage on your vehicles, the diesel you use, wear and tear on your buses, fewer (substitute teachers), fewer absences,” he said.
Fregeau said the district also could save some money by scheduling professional development on the day no classes are held.
The potential move to a four-day school week was one of a number of cost-cutting measures Fox officials looked at before the district asked voters in August 2023 to approve a tax levy increase of 92.07 cents per $100 assessed valuation. Voters rejected the tax increase, with 6,025 no votes (65.99 percent) and 3,105 yes votes (34.01 percent).
Before asking voters for the tax levy increase, the district reduced its spending for the 2023-2024 school year by eliminating 27 teaching positions and two administrative positions through attrition to save about $2.4 million in salary and benefits. It also reduced the budget for all of its school buildings by a combined $250,000 and delayed spending $500,000 on new Chromebooks for this school year.
Fregeau said the district still needs to find ways to reduce spending, and on Feb. 26, he shared budget projections that showed the district’s fund balance dwindling to $3.9 million by 2027, which would be about 2.57 percent of the district’s operating cost. If the fund balance dropped that low, it would put the district at risk of losing accreditation and being taken over by the state.
He said reduced state funding due to a decline in enrollment the elimination of federal funding the district has been receiving because of the COVID-19 pandemic could put the district in a potential financial hole.
“We’ve lost about 800 students over the last 10 years,” Fregeau said. “We’re projected to continue to lose between 500 and 800 students over the next 10 years. In addition, the COVID funding is going away. Between those two amounts being removed from the budget, it presents some challenges moving forward.”