Board tables proposal for two early-out days per month

The Mahomet-Seymour School Board voted to table a proposal from the district administration to revise the 2021-2022 school calendar to include two early-out days per month.

Early-out days include a 2-hour dismissal for students while teachers are to work on professional development. Typically the district has one early-out day per month, but the district believes that an additional one is necessary so that teachers can prepare for the learning loss from the 2020-2021 school year.

Board member Colleen Schultz said that the early-out days only seem to exacerbate the problem for students, and suggested that the district pay teachers $750 for 25 hours of work outside of the regularly scheduled school day so that they are compensated for their work, and students gain from the maximum hours of the school year.

“We just make the problem worse,” Schultz said.  

Schultz said that the compensation would only be 10-percent of the ESSR (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief ) funds.

“It seems reasonable to me that we would spend 10-percent of our money supporting our most valuable tools, our people, and allowing our students to stay in school as many hours as possible to get back to sort of normal,” Schultz said. 

As of Monday, the district had not asked teachers if they would be willing to work outside of regularly scheduled hours for additional compensation. Superintendent Lindsey Hall said that Dr. Rummel had worked with some of the staff to draft this plan.

The district also had not surveyed parents to see how the move might impact them. 

Board member Sunny McMurry said that she liked the idea, but she was cautious about teachers having different schedules or responsibilities outside of the contractual work day. 

“The challenge there is getting people together so that they’re working on grade level conversation that needs to take place with everybody,” McMurry said.

Board member Jeremy Henrichs said he had the same concerns as Schultz. 

Hennesy asked Hall to go back to the teachers and ask if they would be willing to do the work at a different time, and to ask parents via survey how they would feel about an additional early-out day.

McComb said he’d like the district to wait on asking parents until teachers reply to their availability. 

Hennesy added that the board would not dictate when or how that work might be done, saying she thought those decisions should be left to the professionals.