Longtime Moab resident and current Grand County Council member Bob Greenberg remembers what it was like to put a child through the Grand County School system at the time. Greenberg’s daughter graduated from Grand County High School in 1997.
“My daughter always had great teachers throughout her school career,” said Greenberg. “But there were no support systems in place for students who needed extra help. The top students did well, but the other students with further needs didn’t have a lot of options for getting extra assistance.”
According to Greenberg, only 80 of the 120 students who began high school in his daughter’s freshman class graduated four years later, meaning almost 34 percent of the freshmen students either dropped out of school or left the community before graduation.
The high dropout rate was just one part of the academic problems in the district during the four-day school week schedule, according to Grand County School District Superintendant Margaret Hopkin. Student scores on national aptitude and standardized tests also fell during that time, she said.
“We didn’t have the funding for teacher’s assistants like we did over the past decade,” said Hopkin. “The district was required by a non-funded mandate to employ language support teachers, and there were some funds available for special education programs and Title I. But if the district wanted more than one assistant, they had to supplement that cost from the [maintenance and operations] fund.”
Greenberg was one of many parents who went in to the classrooms on a regular basis to help provide assistance to the teachers and students.
“There were no [teaching assistants], and parents were filling those positions in the classroom,” he said. “I volunteered from the time my daughter was in kindergarten until junior high. I would go in and give general help. I also ran a math group.”
Greenberg wasn’t the only parent to become so involved. He said he remembers one parent conducting art classes out of her home to supplement the lack of art programs in the schools.
Some who were involved with the schools during those difficult years say the program cuts, larger classroom sizes and other funding issues did not necessarily have an overall negative impact on local students.
“When my husband taught school here years ago there was a financial crisis the year before he was hired. What few teacher’s aids there were were laid off, and half of Helen M. Knight Intermediate School closed,” said Katherine Holyoak, whose husband taught in the school district during that time. “My husband had a class size of more than 30. We had to deal with it. It was not easy, but the school survived.”
In a guest commentary submitted to The Times-Independent last week, Holyoak recalled the financial crisis that led to the four-day school week.
“HMK was completely closed down and all the students went to [Red Rock Elementary]. Class sizes were about 32 to 34 kids in a class and they also went to a four-day school week,” Holyoak said. “Several of my children went to school during this time. They and their friends survived and those I know turned out and have succeeded in life in spite of the large class sizes and four-day week.”
Hopkin said the district was able to move out of the four-day week with a rising economy and a salary cap for teachers to fund the five-day week. Then in the early 2000s, as more money became available, the district began implementing many of the support programs currently in place.
Those changes ended after school officials discovered last fall that the additional money they had been spending since 2002 was actually the result of years of fund misallocations that caught up to the district in 2009, creating a $2.2 million deficit for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years, and causing the school district to be facing a $1.9 million shortfall for upcoming school years.
With those funds, the district created a tiered-model of instruction that was designed to offer additional help to students at several different levels.
“Since this program was put into place five years ago, Grand schools have seen a consistent increase in student achievement and in test scores,” Hopkin said.
The effect of those changes in instruction models is perhaps most apparent in the improved graduation rate among Grand County High School students when compared to the graduation rate in 1997. The 2009-2010 graduating class, had 126 students who began high school as freshman, with 117 graduating. According to GCHS Principal Steve Hren, some of the nine students moved away, so it is difficult to determine which individuals dropped out of school.
“We do not typically have a high dropout rate overall, though,” Hren said. “It is no more than around 3 to 4 percent.”
School district officials used the surplus funds – which turned out to be misallocated funds that this year had to be repaid to their proper accounts – to hire more people in the classrooms to keep class sizes small and give extra attention where needed, Hopkin said.
“Our TAs work with teachers and parents to stabilize students who need additional academic and behavioral support,” Hopkin said. “They bring critical information on student progress to the weekly WRAP-AROUND meetings and help teachers/students/parents daily with home notes and behavioral/academic tracking.”
Some of the other programs created as a result of the misallocated funds were full-day kindergarten, additional language instruction for students who were not native English speakers, and after-school programs.
However, because of the school district’s current financial crisis, full-day kindergarten will now only be offered for one session and for students who are assessed as needing the additional academic help, Hopkin said. There will also be a lottery drawing to fill the full-day session with other students whose parents are interested. All other kindergarten students will be offered half-day sessions, she said.
“It’s unfortunate to have to take away this program,” said Hopkin. “Students in primary grades have shown greater achievement because they are spending twice the time at school when they are in kindergarten.”
The school district’s language arts program currently employs three teaching assistants, but with the recent deficit and cuts, the district will be reducing that number to two assistants. Many of the after-school programs are now funded by grants and will continue to operate, Hopkin said.
Greenberg said he feels it would be a mistake to allow the district go back to a four-day week.
“It shifts the cost of the district to the parents, most of who work all day. That’s a big burden,” he said. “The kids also lose something in their lives. A five-day week keeps them out of trouble and provides good structure for their lives.”
GCSD was able to avoid moving to a four-day school week for the 2010-2011 school year thanks to the help of a one-time $700,000 donation, actions by the state Board of Education and later, the Utah Legislature that allowed the district to move funds from restricted accounts into the maintenance and operations account for one more year, and by making intensive budget cuts to pay back the $2.2 million deficit. But Hopkin said that unless the district finds new sources of revenue, such as the proposed voted leeway that will be before voters on June 22, the school board and district officials will have to look at a variety of budget options for the following years to see if a move to a four-day week will be required.