Uniontown schools get ready for first day

While many area schools have already been back in session for two weeks, USD 235 will be hitting the books on Sept. 8 and hopes to build off last year's success.

Superintendent Randy Rockhold said changes to the schedule, starting the school year 14 days later in addition to extending the day from 8 a.m. to 3:43 p.m., were well received and the district saw more benefits than just monetary savings. The district operated under the requirement to have a minimum of 1,116 instructional hours in one school year rather than a set number of days.

"We actually had the same number of instructional hours, we just had fewer days," he said.

Despite having 14 fewer days in the schedule, students in grades three through 11 met the Annual Yearly Performance targets in math, science and reading and earned Standard of Excellence awards in all three areas. Rockhold said the preliminary results of the state assessment testing have been released and they will be made official during the October meeting of the Kansas School Board.

"We always make AYP, but we've never made standard of excellence on every test," Rockhold said.

The district had high attendance rates prior to the schedule change, Rockhold said, however, last year's attendance also improved. He said the district saw an unexpected savings as they had fewer substitute teachers last year. The larger benefit was that the teachers were in the classroom more often.

"More important than the money, you have that highly qualified teacher which is so vital," Rockhold said. "Anytime you have your highly trained teachers in the classroom, your students definitely get a benefit from that."

By starting classes later, the district was able to save about $14,000 in fuel and electricity costs. Rockhold said that every day bus routes are not run, the district saves $500. Likewise, he said for every day the building isn't occupied during the hot days at the end of August, the district saves another $500.

"When temperature is like it is today, 100-plus degrees, it is very hard to keep a building, at full capacity, cool," he said.

The added time during the summer has also benefited the custodial staff, Rockhold said, because they have more time to clean the buildings and the grounds to ensure they look nice for the new year.

"I think if you drive by and look at our grounds or our facilities, they're very, very immaculate," he said. "It's because we have the time to make that happen."

Rockhold said he feels the improved academic performance could stem from students and teachers feeling better about school. He said the district recently finished enrollment and students were excited about returning.

"The mindset is very important," he said. "When everyone is ready to come back, that really helps."

With the longer school day, the district was able to make a few more positive changes. Rockhold said a study skills period was added at the middle school level to help teach the skills needed to be an effective student, such as organizational and note-taking skills and reading retention. At the elementary level, another reading rotation was added to help promote that subject. At the high school level, each period was extended to allow for more student questions to be answered.

"Since our results were so positive and since the changes we made were so successful, we are going to stick with what we found works," Rockhold said.

One of the district's concerns last year was the amount of snow days that were taken at the beginning of the second semester. Rockhold said the district came close to not having enough instructional hours by finishing the school year with just 11 more hours than the state requires. Despite the scare, the school calendar remains the same for the second year.

"Last year was my ninth year and we've never experienced that number of days missed for weather. We're hoping that won't occur again," Rockhold said. "Even though it did, we were still in excess of the state minimum and our achievement was amazing."