Building times have been set for the 2023-24 academic year in Galesburg School District 205.
Board members approved the new building times by a 6-1 vote Monday night with Courtney Rodriguez being the lone dissenter.
Superintendent John Asplund told the board that the start times would be staggered for each building:
- Lombard would run from 7:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.
- King, Silas Willard, and Steele from 9:00 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.
- Galesburg Junior Senior High School from 7:40 a.m. to 2:55 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
- On Wednesdays, GJSHS would start at 9:45 a.m.
Asplund says the late start Wednesday is to give staff professional development time.
“All current eight-hour employees would continue to work an eight-hour day, it doesn’t diminish an employee work time it just changes the student contact time, to try and provide more planning time and PD time for staff during the school day. [And] to try to meet all the needs of everybody who has aired some concerns and provided inputs for this school year.”
Rodriguez expressed her concerns that with the later start time on Wednesdays, parents would be forced to leave students at home alone to go to work, leaving them up to their own devices. “I’m not a fan of the late start every single Wednesday. I feel as tho we could do something different, as in one Wednesday a month other than every Wednesday.”
Asplund explained that the decision of having every Wednesday be the later start would give parents consistency. Having it scheduled on the first or second day of a month would eventually create confusion.
He further explained that the professional development time for the K-4 buildings and Lombard was built into every day. A half-hour of instructional time was reduced to give the staff that time for development.
When asked about having the Junior/Senior High School development time after school and letting the students out early, Asplund said that created different issues,”if you have early release on Wednesday but you have a 7th-grade track student, what are they doing in that interim time? We have more ability to have staff provide supervision before.”
“After school, it would start to blur lines. Can’t have coaches starting practice because they’re still working. We felt like this was going to be more easily implemented without hardships for families and students and staff than the other way. And we did look at both ways.”
Bright Futures start time was not. Asplund said that the Pre-K start times would be decided on at the May meeting.