The four-day dilemma

Give credit to Superintendent of Schools Tim Wilder and the Gulf County School Board for thinking boldly in the face of a significant budget crunch.

Wilder and board members have looked well outside the envelope in proposing a four-day school week.

They have sought community input and buy-in for the concept and explored with various agencies and civic organizations around the county ways to address the impacts of a four-day week.

They have held town hall meetings at both ends of the county and listened.

But in the end, no matter how visionary the thinking or unique the concept, at least in the state of Florida, the district should consider other methods for meeting any budget shortfall.

Making a four-day school week work by the fall, a period of mere months, seems too much of a reach at this juncture.

The case for the four-day school week is that it will save the district nearly $400,000-$500,000 that would otherwise have to be found and sliced from the budget.

There are a series of supplementary reasons, from absenteeism to lesser distractions for learning in those four days, but the bottom line is the bottom line – the district is short nearly half a million dollars if budget projections become reality by the end of legislative session.

However, the district is already going to have to make nearly $1.5 million in cuts to personnel and some extracurricular activities, among other items in the budget.

There is going to be pain no matter four or five days. People are going to be lost. Cutbacks in non-core essentials in education were going to occur. Athletics will be impacted.

Further, the estimated savings are just that, estimated. Given the rapid rise in energy prices of late the projected savings in fuel alone seems to evaporate by the day.

And that is a significant portion of the savings; energy to operate the schools. Just as the value of the one mill additional operating levy approved by voters three years ago eroded with property values, any savings on energy could disappear by fall.

The primary case against the four-day week, though, is the community impact.

Maybe in a county where the economics were tilting into the black the community would have the ability to absorb those impacts, but this is a county where economics are tinged in a deep red.

The Washington High Gym is a fine example for the district to consider.

For months, nearly a year in fact, the city has been flailing unsuccessfully to keep the gym, an important asset in the community of North Port St. Joe, open and available to the youth who are kept busy and off the streets when the gym is open.

The city did not have the money and it has only been since private partners, and a timely bit of grant money from the Port St. Joe Redevelopment Agency, did the funds and ability to maintain the gym, at least part time, arrive.

But whether private, or even public, partners, exist to assist the school district with the more tangible impacts of the four-day week is an open question.

As many representatives of key agencies said during a workshop with district officials, there is an opportunity but answering that opportunity, filling the vacuum in key areas, is another ball of wax.

The major item is child care.

Yes, a four-day week might assist some students of working age in securing and holding onto a job – if they can find one in the current economic climate.

But remove the students of working age from the equation and you have somewhere in the vicinity of say, 1,200 students, who will have an extra day with no structure or place to go to.

Many will have family to care for them, but a good number won’t. A number of those students live in homes where any and all parents work. And as most parents of young children can attest the number of registered and licensed child care providers in the county is not overwhelming.

And local governments are all pleading poverty. Private partners, even with the community’s churches on board, that can absorb even half those students, 600, and keep them busy and fed – while meeting federal guidelines for those on free and reduced lunches – for one day do not exist.

If the district is in any way providing funding for the private partners that defeats the point of a four-day week.

The reality is that while a four-day week might be an advantage in the case of older students, for the majority of younger students and their families there is going to be hardship.

This isn’t the county shutting the courthouse one day a week; this is closing six schools and creating a significant rippling effect.

Taxpayers are not the answer, at least not now. An additional .25 mill operating levy available by law to all districts is not the solution as long as the one-mill additional voter-approved levy is in place. Once the voter-approved levy sunsets, the board should look at the additional .25 mills closely.

Increasing the capital outlay millage to the maximum 2 mills also should be off the table until the economic conditions improve.

There is going to be pain, the question is minimizing that pain as much as possible and that means the onus is on the district and its employees, especially the union representing rank-and-file employees, to come up with the solutions to minimize the pain.

District officials have demonstrated a willingness to think boldly. Nothing should be off the table.

But a four-day school week represents too much community impact with minimal upside and considerable downside.